School Fires Unmarried Pregnant Teacher: The Whole Story

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March 5, 2013, 2 PM ET

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An Israeli "national religious" girls high school ("ulpana") fired a teacher who was pregnant...and single. This headline has been floating around the web yesterday, especially in light that the teacher sued the school in court for damages, specifically for having broken the law which prevents women from being fired if they are pregnant. When an ulpana expects their teachers to be more than educators, but also role models for their students, did the school do the right thing even though they broke the law? I could almost understand the ulpana's point of view until I looked around and found that our story above is missing some important details (courtesy of The Marker):

1. The teacher is religious, and observes a religious lifestyle in school and outside of it. 2. The teacher was 41 years old and single. 3. Not finding a husband by her age of 41, the teacher decided to undergo artificial impregnation so she could have a child and she would raise the child as a single parent. The Ulpana claimed they fired the teacher not because she was pregnant, but because she was not observing a religious lifestyle (i.e., had she been married and pregnant, they wouldn't have fired her). The plaintiff's lawyer stated that the Ulpana should have taken into account her unique situation of being a single, religious teacher who wanted to have a child before she would be biologically unable to.

The court ruling stated an important point:

The court does not make light of the defendant's right to determine their school policy, but the right of the defendant is less than than the right of plaintiff, and doesn't justify terminating the plaintiff's employment while violating her right to parenthood. The court awarded 180,000 NIS in damages to the teacher, which is a rather expensive lesson in democracy and "freedom of employment" to the Ulpana. In my opinion, if the ulpana truly wanted to act as a role model for their students, they should not have fired their teacher.

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