N.J. Supreme Court Sides with Catholic School That Fired Pregnant Unmarried Teacher

Victoria Crisitello was fired from St. Theresa School in Kenilworth, N.J. for breaching its ethics rules

A New Jersey teacher who was fired from a Catholic school in 2014 after getting pregnant outside of marriage lost her legal battle against her former employer on Monday.

Victoria Crisitello started out as a toddler room caregiver at St. Theresa School in Kenilworth in September 2011, according to documents released by the N.J. Supreme Court. In 2014, she was offered an art teacher position by the school's principal, Sister Theresa Lee, who later learned that Crisitello was pregnant during a meeting.

Crisitello lost her job weeks later after the school claimed she had breached its code of ethics by "having fornication and not being married,” per the court documents.

The ethics code also demanded that employees “abide by a code of conduct that was not contrary to the discipline and teachings of the Catholic Church[,] and/or which may result in scandal . . . or harm to the ministry of the Catholic Church," the court documents added.

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The former teacher then filed a complaint, accusing the school of violating New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination, which bans unfair employment practices based on factors such as familial status, sex (including pregnancy), domestic partnership status, and marital/civil union status.

On Monday, however, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of St. Theresa School, finding that they were protected by the religious tenets in exception to that law, according to the documents. The law allows religious organizations to follow their own doctrines in hiring and firing decisions, according to the N.J. Office of the Attorney General.

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“We are disappointed with today’s decision, but we are grateful that its narrow scope will not impact the important protections the Law Against Discrimination provides for the overwhelming majority of New Jerseyans,” a spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General said, per the outlet.

Alexander Shalom, the American Civil Liberties Union’s New Jersey Director of Supreme Court Advocacy, told CNN in a statement that “While we recognize that the United States Supreme Court’s prior decisions provide broad latitude to religious employers regarding hiring and firing, we believe the NJ Supreme Court could have, and should have, held that a second grade art teacher was entitled to the protections of the Law Against Discrimination.”

St. Theresa School did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

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