Catholic school fires guidance counselor after almost 40 years because she married a woman
An Indiana guidance counselor who has been with an Indiana Catholic school for 39 years has been told she will soon lose her job because of her same-sex marriage.
Lynn Starkey claims Roncalli High School told her they will not renew her contract as co-director of guidance for the 2019-2020 school year because she has been in a civil union with a woman since 2015 — and due to past discrimination complaints she has filed against the institution, her attorney, Kathleen DeLaney, told USA Today.
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The guidance counselor filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the school and the archdiocese back in November. In addition to discrimination, it alleged that Starkey was subject to a hostile work environment based on sex and sexual orientation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Delaney says she will now amend that charge on Starkey’s behalf in light of the termination notice.
Starkey is actually the second guidance counselor to be targeted by Roncalli High School for her sexual orientation. In August, school officials confirmed they had placed Shelly Fitzgerald, who had worked with the school for 15 years, on administrative leave when they found out she’d married a woman in 2014, according to the Indianapolis Star.
Fitzgerald’s case received so much attention that she famously appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to discuss her situation. The show arranged to donate $25,000 to Fitzgerald’s legal battle against the school, which had given her an ultimatum: dissolve her marriage or face termination.
But Starkey was targeted despite the public scrutiny of Fitzgerald’s case.
Archdiocese spokesperson Greg Otolski released a statement via email about Starkey’s situation, citing the fact that staff and teachers are employed on yearly contracts that the school can decide whether or not to renew.
“Ms. Starkey is currently in breach of her contract with Roncalli High School because she is in a civil union that is considered contrary to a valid marriage as seen through the eyes of the Catholic Church,” the statement read. “The 2019-2020 contract language will contain the same language. Therefore, Ms. Starkey could not in good faith enter into the contract so long as she is unable to abide by the terms of the contract.”
That contract, the school added, lists the expectations and values of the school and archdiocese, including the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman. A statement that has since been deleted from the school’s Facebook page read, “When the expectations of a contract are not being met, the employee and the school will attempt to reach a resolution so that the contractual requirements are fulfilled.”
These values apply to more than 60 schools led by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, which employs thousands of people, DeLaney noted. “We are confident that many, if not most of those employees, do not follow all of the church’s teachings all of the time,” she said. “We are shocked and saddened that Roncalli and the archdiocese have targeted this exemplary guidance counselor for discriminatory and retaliatory enforcement of church doctrine.”
“In 39 years of employment at Roncalli, my case and Ms. Fitzgerald’s are the only situations where I know the principal has asked an employee about potential violations of the church’s teachings,” Starkey said when she filed her initial complaint in November. She said she was assigned to take over many of Fitzgerald’s duties, but that her work environment was not the same after her colleague was removed.
“I have suffered severe emotional distress, pain and suffering and mental anguish as a result of the archdiocese and Roncalli’s discriminatory actions,” Starkey said at the time.
Yahoo Lifestyle has reached out to DeLaney to find out the attorney’s next steps in representing the guidance counselor, but a statement she made in November hints at an impending lawsuit.
“The filing of an EEOC charge of discrimination is a required first step before a lawsuit may be initiated,” she said at the time. “Once the EEOC concludes its administrative review of Ms. Starkey’s charge (after 180 days), she intends to sue the archdiocese and the school.”
Yahoo Lifestyle has also reached out to Roncalli High School and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis for further comment.
On Tuesday, a former employee of a Catholic school in Kentucky claimed the Archdiocese of Louisville “forcible ended” her 11-year career at the school 10 months ago when priests found out she was in a same-sex marriage. She’s now speaking out about her situation alongside LGBTQ advocacy organization the Fairness Campaign.
And in February, Skye Moore, a pre-kindergarten teacher beloved by parents in Chapin, S.C., was terminated by a Baptist school when authorities discovered she was engaged to a woman she’d been in a relationship with for three years. Her community organized a peaceful protest to reinstate the teacher they called “the most loving, qualified, gifted person” and “everything you would want in a teacher and a friend.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Family sues school district after teacher slams student’s fingers in a door
Lawsuit: School ended yoga classes because Christian parents complained
Woman claims she was fired for being transgender: ‘This is baffling to me’
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