A Catholic high school outside Detroit, where a gay teacher was fired after revealing she was pregnant, has said it plans to review its morality clause governing employee behavior after a backlash against the decision..
The teacher, Barb Webb, taught chemistry for nine years at Marian high school, a Catholic high school for girls in Bloomfield, Michigan. Webb, 33, says she told the administration last month she was 14 weeks pregnant and offered to take a leave of absence until after her child was born. She says she was told she could resign or be fired. She chose the latter.
Webb said she does not believe her firing was strictly based on the fact that she is gay, but that it was because she became pregnant outside of a traditional marriage.
The school’s morality clause, which all teachers are expected to sign, is “quite vague”, Webb said, in that it only states that teachers and other employees must not publicly display or teach anything that contradicts Catholic doctrine. Legal experts say such clauses can often mask unlawful discrimination.
Webb said the administration has actively hired teachers knowing they are gay, and are aware of other teachers who have gone through divorce. She says she was terminated only because her pregnancy would become visible.
“It’s pick and choose” regarding what constitutes morality, she said. “The administration hired people knowing they were gay but knowing they could choose to keep it private. Unfortunately, when you want to start a family, you can’t keep it quiet forever.”
The Guardian had not received a response to requests for a statement from administrators at Marian high school by the time of publication.
But earlier this week, Marian parents received a letter from Sister Mary Jane Herb, president of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Monroe, Michigan, a group of nuns that founded the school in 1959. She did not mention Webb by name but said that her organisation would work with the school’s executive committee to “re-examine policies and procedures in light of Catholic identity.”
“Pope Francis has brought a sense of hope to our lives and encourages us to look at our church with new eyes. No, it is not likely that doctrine will change, however the Pope emphasizes that the values of mercy, inclusion and compassion need to be included in our response to complex situations,” Herb wrote. The letter was posted on a Facebook supporting Webb. A spokesperson for Herb said she would not comment further on the record.
Webb’s firing has ignited an international protest movement online. A petition to ask Marian “to rethink [its] policies and start supporting LGBT staff and students” has gathered nearly 70,000 signatures and another effort to raise money for a diversity program within the school has raised about $3,600.
Webb, who is married to a woman, said she was not interested in pursuing legal action at the moment, but wants to first wait to see what effect the letter from Herb will have, it any, on the school policy. She is currently substitute teaching and says her primary interest is to raise awareness, not to get her old job back.
“I just want people to know this is going on,” she said.
Kingsley Brown, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, who specialises in employment law and discrimination issues, said that Webb was “clearly discriminated against” because she was pregnant outside a traditional marriage, and not solely because she is gay.
However he added that morality clauses protect religious organisations from such actions. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Michigan is one of 29 states that do not prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which means that even if Webb sought to prove she was fired due to her sexuality, the high school would not have been in the wrong to do so.
“There is no prohibition against discrimination [against gay people]” in Michigan, he said. Legal action would depend on determining how other employees were treated under similar circumstances. “Based on what we know, it’s not a slam-dunk case for either side,” he says.
Her situation is one of many over recent years that involve gay staff members losing their jobs at Catholic schools.
Last month two lesbian teachers at Cor Jesu Academy in St Louis, a Catholic high school for women, were fired for violating their morality clause after it was revealed they had married in New York this summer. Last year, an English teacher at St Lucy’s Priory High School outside Los Angeles was fired after a newspaper article revealed he had married a man. In Bensalem, Pennsylvania, a teacher at Holy Ghost Preparatory School was fired after applying for a marriage license to marry his partner.
Dana Nessel, a Detroit attorney specialising in gay and lesbian civil rights issues, says that these cases “highlight the fact that there are no LGBT protections” in these states. She says morality clauses often create legal jeopardy because they are often unclear and are applied indiscriminately.
“What these places need to do is outline and say ‘here’s what behavior we’re specifically talking about’. These places run into trouble when they don’t define what [morality] means,” she says. “If the definition is ‘violating Catholic precepts’ then you better be consistent about it and it has to remain within the confines of federal and state law.”
Many advocates say the firing of Webb will create a backlash against the small school, which has only 520 students.
Laura De Palma, a 1999 graduate who is now pursuing her masters in social work at the University of Michigan, says she was “not shocked” Webb was fired based on the school’s “very conservative culture.” But she said she is hopeful there will be change.
“It reconfirmed my notion that there needs to be an internal culture shift within the school that needs to happen organically and be initiated by the students,” she said.
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