New Jersey Supreme Court backs school that fired teacher over premarital sex

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 224 points –
New Jersey Supreme Court backs school that fired teacher over premarital sex
thehill.com

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Roman Catholic school in a case involving employment discrimination allegations from an employee who was terminated after she became pregnant out of wedlock.

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I respect the voicing an opinion that goes against the grain, but...

  1. That school gets federal funds. We pay for these idiots to teach nonsense.

  2. Contracts shouldn't be able to violate basic freedoms. Don't like it, work elsewhere, right?

Check the contract/waiver for your cell phone, mortgage, bank, school, employment, etc. Odds are there's an arbitration mandate. Guess who arbitration sides with 95+% of the time. The guys who pay them.

Contracts state ridiculously evil shit. There are too many contracts to read. Organizations push for too much. We should not be able to sign away fundamental rights.

Try getting a job, cell phone, apartment, etc., without signing away basic rights. It's only getting harder.

Edit: Stupid phone typos

Contracts shouldn’t be able to violate basic freedoms

Having any specific job isn't a basic freedom. You aren't entitled to a paycheck from anyone.

I'm not saying having a job is a freedom. What happens when every job includes a clause that says "you can't sue us, no matter what." Because most of the contracts that you sign already say that. Every Cellular service does. Most factories do. I work in software and pretty much every gig I've ever worked included something along those lines.

It's not always enforcable, but this kind of thing inches us closer.

Sounds like a good reason to not take those contracts. If enough people find the terms to be bad and refuse them, companies ultimately have to change the terms if they want employees.

I agree in theory. Except most people don't care, or don't know to look for those things. Pretty soon it's all you run into. Gamer? Micro transactions are in basically everything now. Farmer? Check out what John Deer does. Need healthcare, good luck. Military? No thanks. Software? What all of the big players has trickled down. Factory work? That language has already been there a long time, often at the state level. Look at the maximum you can get for a lost arm in Alabama. Hint: it's less than $50k Etc. Etc.

If the average person doesn't care, then there's nothing wrong with the average person getting whacked with the consequences of their actions. I, for one, would definitely not take a job specifically on the terms of not having premarital sex if I intended to have premarital sex.

And as for state-level law making these terms guaranteed, it certainly seems like a damn good argument for not fucking regulating everything into the ground.

So you've read every EULA you've ever signed (that thing you agree to on every site, ever piece of software, etc.)? It would take decades to read them all. It's too much. Basic protections and regulations keep us alive.

You benefit from those annoying regulations every time you eat from a restaurant or grocery store. Do you go inspect the back room personally? Prior to the FDA there was rotten meat, and literal poison. You just don't have time to inspect everything single thing you do. Regulations aren't fun, but they keep us alive. I would wager anything that you've unknowingly agreed to some awful terms for many things. You just haven't been burned yet.

Most countries have pretty strict laws about protected characteristics that you can't sack people over and getting pregnant is one, regardless of how it happens.