Posted on 06/09/2010 10:00:05 AM PDT by inflorida
Fourth-grade teacher Jarretta Hamilton was newly married and expecting a baby when she went to speak with her supervisors in April of last year.
But the administrators at Southland Christian School in St. Cloud parried her query about maternity leave with a query of their own: When did she conceive?
After Hamilton admitted that her child had been conceived about three weeks before her February 20, 2009, wedding, the school fired her.
Now she's suing in federal court.
"She wants compensation for the loss of the job, and she's seeking compensatory damages for emotional distress," said Edward Gay, Hamilton's attorney who filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Orlando.
In the complaint, which asks for a trial by jury, Hamilton alleges her termination was based on the fact of her pregnancy — and that the school offended her by disclosing the information about when she conceived to other school staffers and the parents of students Hamilton taught during the 2008-2009 school year.
Hamilton did not authorize the school to reveal that information, according to the complaint.
She also tried to keep the matter from getting to this point, Gay said. She filed discrimination charges with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Florida Commission on Human Relations, but has since exhausted her options.
A July 20, 2009, letter signed by school administrator Julie Ennis explains why the school's administrators thought they had to fire Hamilton:
"Jarretta was asked not to return because of a moral issue that was disregarded, namely fornication, sex outside of marriage," the letter reads. "The employment application, which she filled out, clearly states that as a leader before our students we require all teachers to maintain and communicate the values and purpose of our school."
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
This isn’t law it’s an contractual agreement between private citizens.
Yes.
Yeah...OK. I guess fingers in ears is also a "biblical" principal to be upheld too.
Sigh. There's always got to be one idiot such as yourself who likes to sling around "gotcha" accusations without evidence.
What's funny is that even if there are a few Christian schools that have had teachers who diddled with students, it still doesn't change the fact that this school was entirely in the right to fire this teacher for violating her side of the contract, even if they handled the subsequent events improperly. This school is not responsible for what may or may not have happened at other schools.
Perhaps you mistake our right to criticize and shame these organization as us saying “they have no right”.
The Bible is not a shield from public criticism or critique.
Only the left hides behind things when they cant stand public scrutiny.
Of course. On what reasoning to you claim otherwise?
Pregnancy is most certainly a medically defined condition with a corresponding specialty field that does nothing else.
“Pregnancy is not a medical condition or disease.”
Pregnancy isn’t a medical condition? I wish I’d known that before I endured all those exams and tests from medical doctors. And I should have stayed home and died during childbirth along side my son instead of having an emergency C-section.
/s
All my kids were born early. (Of course, I had already been married years.)
Heck with it being a first baby, those are notoriously late. The baby could have been born nine months after the wedding.
The contract also probably says that employees can’t drink. Would they fire someone if they found out they had a glass of champagne at a wedding? They probably would just remind the employee about the contract.
Obey what by choice? The laws?
Me too.
The school is in big trouble.
Actually, it's about contract law. You abide by the contract, or you get fired. Could have happened for any stipulation in the contract, even one non sex-related (which seems to be what is really driving people's anger here). Guess what, bub, when you work for somebody else, you abide by their rules - period - or they can fire you. Works the same for any private company. Don't believe me? Why don't you just spend all day surfing the internet for porn or selling stuff on EBay, and let me know how your employer reacts to that after a couple of weeks of it.
I’d love to know how many of them were virgins on their wedding night.
"The Privacy Rule does not protect your employment records, even if the information in those records is health-related. Generally, the Privacy Rule also does not apply to the actions of an employer, including the actions of a manager in your workplace."
"The Privacy Rule does not prevent your supervisor, human resources worker or others from asking you for a doctor’s note or other information about your health if your employer needs the information to administer sick leave, workers’ compensation, wellness programs, or health insurance."
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/consumers/employers.html
This will be an interesting case to follow......
I have never applied for a credit card.
Ever.
Cash only, except for a mortgage.
But according to some folks here, God hates all of those folks and they wont inherit his “kingdom”.
Goodness knows how great of a kingdom it could be where this type of thing gets a thumbs up.
“You don’t find asking a married, pregnant woman when she conceived to be morally repugnant and criminally invasive?”
I see it as totally un-Christian in this circumstance.
"Interrogated"? They asked her a simple question, which she answered. It was a question directly pertaining to her contractual obligations to the school. The school erred in subsequently telling other teachers and parents, but not in asking her about it, in and of itself.
Because you are so much holier than anyone who would dare to disagree with you.
Stoning the harlot?
I expected the HTT crowd to show up here, but not with this much venom toward a woman who has married the father, didn’t have an abortion and was wearing her engagement ring when the child was conceived.
Good grief a lot of kids I grew up with went down the isle with their mother back in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Back then once the ring went on and the woman committed with “yes I will be your wife” then they looked at themselves as common law wives until they could get all the family together to make it official.
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