A teacher at a Catholic school announced on Facebook that she was an atheist and now she got canned from her job and is ticked off that she was fired. I don’t know if she technically sued the school but she lawyered up and is fighting for unemployment benefits.
The school said the teacher violated a policy that prohibits employees from advocating “principles contrary” to the teachings of the church.
“I never thought something like that would jeopardize my job,” she said Friday from Phoenix, Ariz., where she was applying for teaching jobs.
Really? How can this be surprising to anyone? Why do people think Facebook doesn’t count? I’ve interviewed people for jobs and then checked out their Facebook only to see it filled with drunken and half naked pictures. Guess what? They don’t get the job.
The school is defending itself rightly.
St. Edmonds took the “appropriate action,” Kristie Arlt, spokeswoman for the Sioux City Diocese, said of the math teacher.
“The main thing is that she stated she didn’t believe in God,” Arlt said. “It’s pretty hard to put that same teacher in front of students in a Catholic school system.”
Nurre said her views constantly evolve and that she is constantly trying to expand her knowledge, whether on religion, astrology, fitness or politics.
“I just like learning about it. I don’t see why that should cause someone to get fired,” she said.
So go on your own personal vision quest for a religion on your own time. Don’t float it out there in the public domain.
The teacher, is of course, saying she feels like her privacy was violated.
But why do people think that Facebook shouldn’t count?
June 1, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Teresea,
You said,
"What I'm saying is, I do not see the line between good teacher/bad teacher or the line between good person/bad person as corresponding to Catholic/non-Catholic."
The Archdioceses never said that non-Catholics are bad people. In the case of the teacher who was fired, she more than likley lied about her faitn on her application. And if she didn't lie, the fact that she changed her mind from being Catholic to Athiest was enough to have her fired.
The point being is that it is not too much for a diocese to demand that its teachers be Catholic. It has nothing to do with them as a person or thier competency to teach. Why go to the all of the trouble of having Catholic schools if its teachers and administrators are not Catholic. There are plenty of great private schools (many are secular). Most Catholic parents want thier children's teachers to be Catholic. And I've met a few over the years who were surprised that Nuns no longer run the schools are teach in the classrooms like they did 60 years ago.
June 1, 2010 at 2:48 pm
"What I'm saying is, I do not see the line between good teacher/bad teacher or the line between good person/bad person as corresponding to Catholic/non-Catholic."
What Jerome said and I will add that it is manifest public counter-witness. If a guy wants to espouse the racial views of David Duke, so be it. If he wants to keep his job at the NAACP, well…
June 1, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Anon @ 10:50 actually, it's apparent you don't have an idea about most things. Not surprising. Stay in school.
June 1, 2010 at 6:52 pm
That faking Catholicism thing was upsetting. The woman admits she went to confession, not believing in it at all, in fact not being a Catholic at all, and lied during it.
She is planning to do "that bread thing" ie receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.
It is like seeing the damnation of a soul before your very eyes!
I just said a prayer for her. If each of us does the same, perhaps God will send her enough grace to wake her up, open her eyes, turn her around, and bring her to Him.
Susan Peterson
June 1, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Assuming she didn't get the job expressly to undermine the school's goals (not as out-there as you might think, I met a girl at bootcamp that was not only there for that reason, but assumed I was, as well) then she assumed facebook didn't count because the internet "doesn't count."
You see it all the time–video games are the most obvious, since it's all in the same context, but if I had 5c for each time I'd heard someone justify ganking and camping the other side because "it's just a game"…..
They'll freely admit their goal is to harass the other person, but somehow it's not "real" because they can't see the other person, it's on the internet. They'd never do this in a LAN game, but put it on the web, and it's OK.