The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Catholic school that terminated a teacher for having premarital sex, according to court documents.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Catholic school that terminated a teacher for having premarital sex, according to court documents.
Sometimes, the contents of contracts are illegal even when they are signed. It’s apparently not the case here according to the Court, but the question can be worth to ask.
You can’t sign away actual rights, but you can agree to pretty much anything else. It’s been well established that companies can fire you for any off-duty behavior they deem inappropriate, as long as the reason doesn’t conflict with a protected class. This is the same mechanism that allows people to be fired for being a Nazi or participating in the Jan 6th insurrection, even before being charged with a crime.
Being pregnant is a protected class under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, though: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-pregnancy-discrimination-and-related-issues#IA1
While there can probably fire her for having premarital sex, they legally can’t fire her for being pregnant. If she became pregnant through IVF, for example, then there was no sex involved.
You see, one of these things is a personal choice between two consenting adults and the other is promoting criminal hate, violence, and sedition which negatively affects large groups of people.