An Unmarried Catholic Schoolteacher Got Pregnant. She Was Fired.

A lawsuit that she filed in New Jersey is testing the First Amendment limits of religious freedom.

When a Catholic school art teacher was asked to take on extra responsibilities, she requested a raise, explaining that she was about to have a baby. Weeks later, she was fired from her New Jersey elementary school. The principal, a Roman Catholic nun, told her she was being terminated “because she was pregnant and unmarried,” court records show. The woman sued. Her daughter is now 7, but the lawsuit remains in limbo, caught in a yearslong back-and-forth between New Jersey’s trial and appellate courts.