They already said staff couldn’t be associated with someone engaging in those activities. That means you.
They will be looking for any excuse possible to fire you in the coming days/weeks. Get setup for a payday bc it’s private school not public. They will pay whatever it takes to not have it tarnish their image. But will try to bully you out w/o a lawyer on your side
Edit: OP please call out sick tomorrow and meet with an employment attorney. It’s for your own good and better to have setup and not need it than to not have it and need it.
If it's a Church owned school, then they can be as hateful as they want. If it's public school then lawyering up would be a good idea. Also, the ACLU may be interested in helping out if it's public school since it appears you are being punished by association.
In addition, ask for the employee handbook that outlines the offense. If they don't have it written down, then it's a legal issue, even for a Church.
As maddening as this is, it is true. I hate that it's true. OP you are going to get sooooo much incorrect advice from people who don't know the reality of working for a religion ran school. I am sorry to predict.
With a teacher shortage do you really have no other options? I believe it is entirely possible that they will run you out by nit picking every little thing. My advice get out ASAP. It doesn't matter how great the kids and parents are. You have no rights here. Find work in a union school if you can
It's infuriating!
Bootlicker. It’s rugged individualism to decline a union. That sense of entitlement is how the bosses make sure you fall in line. It is easier to control 50 individuals coming to you separately than a group of 50 bringing joint complaints.
Nobody takes that kind of pay cut, it’s anti-labor hyperbole, but yes, I do think taking a small pay cut to be in a union is morally right. My husband is currently trying to get a union vote in his shop. He will never make more money in a union, he’s topped out, but a union is the right thing and we make sacrifices for the right thing. You’re working for the good of all workers or you’re letting the bosses use your entitlement to screw everyone over. No social change has ever happened in this country without organized labor behind it.
Unfortunately a lot of states (especially in the south where religious private schools are very popular) don't allow unionization of teachers as they are considered 'state' employees.
At least in my state, they easily would not renew a teacher's contract for the very same thing, and I know several people who have been associated or had someone associated with OF and let go. The truth is unless there are protections in place for activities outside of work, this sort of thing will always happen.
The school year has started. The only work will be substitute teaching until the next semester. They won't get rid of any teachers until December which is why they gave a warning.
There are a bunch of teaching positions listed as open in my district. I’d wager that’s true in many areas, in many states. I don’t know about Canuckistan, or other countries, but there is a shortage of teachers in the US.
I went to a Christian cult school who would sit a teacher or student down and ask if they were “saved” and practicing and they didn’t like the answer you no longer went/worked there. It’s all in the bylaws, private schools can fire you over anything pretty much that doesn’t fit their standards.
The Supreme Court sided with two Catholic schools in a ruling Wednesday underscoring that certain employees of religious schools, hospitals, and social service centers can’t sue for employment discrimination.
The reasoning was the separation of church and state, sometimes it’s gonna have a shitty result. But the government can’t force a religious institution to hire people, if we are serious about keeping the government out of religion and religion out of government.
I’m aware of the tortured logic the Supreme Court used. It’s worse than the logic they used in Bush v Gore.
That line of reasoning is specious. The first amendment just says the government cannot establish a religion or prevent people from “freely exercising” their religion. Nowhere does it imply that religious organizations should not have to follow the general rules of secular society. An employer following employment law is not in any way abridging their right to freely practice their religion.
It is, however, preventing them from forcing their religion on others. But apparently in the US, if you are an employer, your “religious rights” include forcing your employees to submit to your beliefs, at least, as long as your are a conservative Christian.
100%, this would not be the case if the business owner were Islamic or Zorastrian.
Can almost guarantee there is a morality cause in OPs contract. Quite common at a Religiously affiliated school and they use it for termination all the time.
If the morality claws on the contract cover this, she would probably already be fired most likely.It covers only the teacher's own behavior, and that is why they did not fire her.
Teachers should be able to have privacy. With the current SCOTUS and the shitty rulings coming down, plus the terrible rulings over the past few years that throw out precedent and Constitutionality, should doesn’t matter.
Actually, working for a religious affiliated school is not the same as working for any other employer.
The Supreme Court sided with two Catholic schools in a ruling Wednesday underscoring that certain employees of religious schools, hospitals, and social service centers can’t sue for employment discrimination.
Both US catholic schools and both hired me as an equal opportunity employee but employees involved in religion work were ministerial. I have submitted to extensive background checks, fingerprinting etc.
Regardless, it sounds like OP did sign such an agreement and she seems kind of immature in that she doesn’t understand why her employer has a problem with this and thinks it’s only fair that the person with the account be reprimanded as well.
Some schools did require all employees reclassified as ministerial after a Supreme Court case. It is quite possible that is what happened there. If you are involved with teaching religion you are pretty much guaranteed to be. As a non-Catholic who just happened to work at a catholic school I won’t work for one that considers me ministerial.
No— they broadened the definition of ministerial, and it’s questionable whether or not it’s going to get even further broadened to include any employees. But OP is a teacher.
The U.S. Supreme Court has eschewed a “rigid formula” for application of the “ministerial exception.” Thus, lower courts are left to draw boundaries based on the newly announced principle from Our Lady: “What matters, at bottom, is what an employee does.” Importantly, this principle may even reach “secular” employees. That is, an employee need not be a practicing member of the religion for the exception to apply.
You dont need legal grounds for termination in a right to work state(i dont know where this is), it is at will employment. Find another job, why do you want to work there.
NAL but I think they mean wrongful termination so instances of termination like retaliation, discrimination, etc. Those laws would be equitable across public and private employment, I believe.
Edit:
For the love of all things, I am not saying OP IS a protected class. I was saying that equitable laws of termination on the ground of protected classes exist in the public and private sector.
Yes, but depending on what OP signed when hired, the could potentially be legally terminated. Many religious schools have pretty restrictive morality clauses. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. It’s wild.
Here are some of the exceptions to age as a protected class. There's also things like female only gyms or stuff like strip clips that are allowed to hire only women for certain positions.
In the employment law context, religious institutions enjoy legal protections that other employers do not. A legal doctrine known as the ministerial exception allows ministries to seek the dismissal of certain employment law claims filed by employees or former employees.
I wonder if the principal subscribing to a sex worker is also in violation of the morality clause. OP is in a normal relationship with him and has no involvement or affiliation with the sex work. The principal is more involved with the actual sex work than she is.
Lawyer could make some sort of case for uneven enforcement of the morality clause that protects OP or at least gets them a bag on the way out.
These comments crack me up, because they’re written with such confidence. You have no idea what her local laws are, and it most likely is legal grounds for termination.
No. First of all, that is incorrect. OP almost for certain, has a Morals Clause in her contract that addresses this. Btw, most right to work states have Moral Clauses in their contacts for state workers and teachers. Religious schools can also fire employees for anything that doesn't align with their beliefs. It's infuriating, but true.
Jane and the other administrators are also likely bound to the same morality clause, so by their own logic there’s a case to be made that Jane should be fired
There's almost no chance it's an illegal termination.
OP is a women but I'd not being terminated for being a woman.
OP is being terminated because of her public image and her relationship with a sex worker. Get relationship doesn't fall under a protected class.
Unless she has something specific in a contract precluding this termination... There's not much op can do but job hunt and file for unemployment if she gets terminated.
? A private firm is not beholden to tax dollars from the government therefore they have more freedom/say over the decision they make. Public schools are much different in that their money comes from taxpayers, therefore they're more inclined to follow local rules and regulations.
This is not legal grounds for termination and likely HR calmed principal down from taking action in favor of giving it a few more days to find a better reason.
You don't understand employment law, especially when it comes to private, CHURCH BASED, schools.
Please stop trying to give OP advice on this matter, you're not helping.
Lawyers have ethical obligations that do not allow them to "bully" people into paying out over a nonexistent claim. That's called extortion. And frankly, the school would tell them to kick rocks, because I'm sure a religious institution is happy to publicly acknowledge that they fired someone for this.
Will they feel the same way when they find out about the principals actions if there are any….. like nullifying her own morality clause SHE signed? OP can not be accused without proof. The sex worker being her bf has nothing to do with that! I bet they would find more unacceptable behavior between this guy and the principal if they looked! Hey, what’s good for the goose…… right?
You're talking about a large group of people who worship an unseen entity in the sky that controls everything in the world, says everything that happens is part of "His plan" and bases their lives on a book with so many unverifiable and completely preposterous claims that I consider it one of the greatest works of Fiction of all time.....and you think they need PROOF here to make an accusation against OP?????
You do need to fire them for a legal reason even if it's at will. An employment lawyer can look over the case and see if you have grounds to sue. Even if they give no reason you can still sue for wrongful termination and then they have to provide the actual reason.
I'd also add that she should look for a new job at the same time.
Dude, I am an actual lawyer. As long as you don't fire an at will employee for an ILLEGAL reason (race, gender, etc), they can fire them for any reason whatsoever, including not liking the shirt they wore to work that day.
False, even if you are a lawyer, if I'm willing to believe that, you shouldn't be discouraging people from having a consultation. They should be speaking to someone that deals with employment law. If someone thinks that they were discriminated against and their employer says I fired him because his shirt was blue, that shit is not going to fly. It's probably going to be found in discovery.
"We basically accept that there are three races--Caucasians, Negroes and Orientals. Caucasians can't date Orientals. Orientals can't date Caucasians, and neither of them can date Negroes."
I was incorrect concerning them being the largest as I misremembered the proportion of their total enrollment that was part of the seminary program.
That said, they did not fully desegregate until 2000. As evidenced by the article I linked above. If you’re still forbidding people from interacting or living together based on a race- that’s segregation.
Exactly. OP really should have led with the type of school because it being a religious school makes a MASSIVE difference. They can essentially fire her for anything.
Actually it all comes down to what type of employee you are. There are ministerial employees and equal opportunity employees at the same organization many times. Even churches are limited in what they can do if you are hired as an equal opportunity employer of a non-ministerial position.
Yeah, I feel like OP leaving out that the school is a private church-associated school was a real failure for providing context here. I kept wondering why she wasn’t answering all of the “are you in a union?” questions. As an at-will employee of a religious institution, she’s not going to have an actionable lawsuit.
Most religious organizations have some umbrella policy in their handbook like "employees are expected to uphold the moral values of the organization at work and in their personal lives" which they will claim is the policy she is breaking.
Not saying it's right, I just used to work at a religious group and had a friend fired for her out of work activities.
Churches aren't immune to constructive dismissal. If OP is being singled out for "lewd" activities while at the same time their employer is actively ignoring those same behaviours from other employees, then they're opening themselves up to some legal issues.
This is not true. Rules are similar on this issue for private & public schools. The reality is a public school could also discipline a teacher/forbid a visitor on these grounds. And I doubt the ACLU would be interested, even if this were a public school.
Also - the stuff about the employee handbook is wrong. Employers are allowed to make up new policies, change policies, or just do things off-the-cuff. The exception is for things like firing whistleblowers or members of a protected class, which doesn't apply here.
There's a litmus test I ask people in situations like this to get them to realize that this isn't a hate / religious issue. That question is (in this case):
Would you be fine and comfortable with an OF worker sending one of their content videos to your child, or any child?
Because there is a reason why places like OF ask and have legalese for, "Are you 18+?"
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u/thedudeabidezzzz 6d ago edited 6d ago
Lawyer up!
They already said staff couldn’t be associated with someone engaging in those activities. That means you.
They will be looking for any excuse possible to fire you in the coming days/weeks. Get setup for a payday bc it’s private school not public. They will pay whatever it takes to not have it tarnish their image. But will try to bully you out w/o a lawyer on your side
Edit: OP please call out sick tomorrow and meet with an employment attorney. It’s for your own good and better to have setup and not need it than to not have it and need it.