** This woman, teaching in a catholic school, got fired coz shes having her baby out of wedlock. What do you guys think of this? **
Unwed pre-K teacher files bias suit vs. Queens Catholic school
BY KATHLEEN LUCADAMO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/925-pregnant.jpg **Fired St. Rose of Lima teacher Michelle McCusker is flanked by parents, Susan and Gary, as she reads details of bias suit. **
An unmarried rookie teacher at a Queens parochial school confessed to her principal she was pregnant - and was promptly fired for violating “Catholic morality.” Now 26-year-old Michelle McCusker is suing, saying she was unfairly bounced just a month into her first full-time job as a pre-K teacher at St. Rose of Lima.
“I don’t understand how a religion that prides itself on forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I’m pregnant and choosing to have this baby,” said McCusker in between sobs with her parents by her side.
The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal discrimination complaint on the mother-to-be’s behalf against the Rockaway Beach school and Diocese of Brooklyn yesterday, charging McCusker was wrongly removed and that the church’s policy unfairly targets women.
“The school fired Ms. McCusker ostensibly for engaging in nonmarital sex but neither the school nor the diocese that runs the school enforces this policy against men,” said NYCLU’s head of Reproductive Rights Anna Schissel.
Principal Theresa Andersen commended McCusker’s job performance in an Oct. 11 termination letter, writing, “Your teaching ability and love of your children was of a high degree of professionalism.”
Andersen forwarded calls for comment to the Diocese of Brooklyn.
Church leaders said McCusker agreed to rules in their teacher personnel handbook, which states “a teacher is required to convey the teachings of the Catholic faith by his or her words and actions, demonstrating an acceptance of Gospel values and the Christian tradition.”
“This is a difficult situation for every person involved, but the school had no choice but to follow the principles contained in the teachers’ personnel handbook,” said diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa.
Two days after McCusker, a Catholic who graduated from St. John’s University in the spring, told Andersen that she was three months pregnant, she lost her $30,000-a-year job and health insurance. She is living with her parents on Long Island and working as a substitute teacher in city public schools.
“If I decided to abort the baby, the decision to fire me would not have been made because they would not have known,” said McCuster.
A similar case was brought in 2003 when the unmarried director of an after-school program for Catholic Charities of Buffalo became pregnant. She was demoted and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the charity violated anti-discrimination laws.