Where's the Line Between Personal and Professional Life?
Submitted by Erin on Tue, 06/15/2010 - 12:30
Keeping your professional life and your personal life separate is common in any work industry, and everyone knows you don’t mix the two. But what do you do when your personal life is the reason you no longer have a professional life? And this didn’t happen because you had an affair with a coworker or caused a legal issue, but because you had a baby with your now-husband.
Jarretta Hamilton was a fourth grade teacher at a Christian elementary school in St. Cloud, FL until she was fired for “fornication.” Ms. Hamilton conceived a child with her fiancé three weeks before her wedding, and when she found out she was pregnant she requested the standard 6 weeks of maternity leave after the baby was born. However, during that meeting with her supervisor, Julie Ennis, she was questioned about the date of conception in comparison to the date of the wedding. When Ms. Ennis discovered the child had been conceived out of wedlock, she fired Ms. Hamilton for violating her contract and engaging in pre-marital sex. Taking things one step further, Ms. Ennis held a faculty meeting and informed all staff and parents of her class why Ms. Hamilton had been let go.
The contract that was supposedly breached states that, “as a leader before our students we require all teachers to maintain and communicate the values and purpose of our school.” The issue is whether or not that means that teachers can’t engage in pre-marital sex, and if that is the case, how many other personal choices are limited by accepting this job? There is no other morality clause or any other specific information in the contract other than that one line.
It’s not the right of the employer to question the conception date of a woman getting married; in fact it’s wrong for her personal life to be an issue at all in this case. It’s not like she has nude pictures all over the Internet for students to find or is having an affair with another teacher that could end in legal issues. Having a child with your fiancé is not something to be ashamed of and it is certainly not something that should cost you a job where you didn’t ever agree to follow a term that specific. The one line in her contract being used against her does not at all specify what she can and cannot do, and it definitely does not give a superior the right to “do the math” and figure out when she got pregnant so she can be fired. She is a grown woman with her own life, and the choices she makes, all of which are responsible and personal, are no one’s business but her own.
Related Sources
Teacher fired for premarital sex, MSNBC
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Comments
wow, that school is such a
wow, that school is such a prude. I mean, I understand it might be an ultra-conservative Christian school, but it so wasn't necessary to tell everyone why the teacher was fired. (Let alone, firing her in the first place). What/who gives the school a right to make judgment on the teacher's life and try to control it? She is only there to do her job, which is to teach. I don't think she would be teaching the students to get pregnant before they get married anyways.
It's understandable that such
It's understandable that such a school would want to employ teachers that uphold the values of the school, but what about the values of forgiveness and tolerance? What happens to a student who fails to uphold the school's values? I've seen this problem in churches I used to attend, where people are basically outcast because of a mistake they made. That just doesn't make any sense to me.
I agree that this teacher's personal choices should not have been considered so heavily. It's a weird situation. A regular school could say they only want to employ teachers who are responsible, thorough, and invested in the children's future. If a teacher upheld all of those values in the classroom, but after hours was unreliable to friends, late paying bills, and refused to buy girl scout cookies, I don't think the school would have much of a case against firing them. It seems like it should be the same case in this situation, despite the fact that it is a religious school.