THE LOOP — The U.S. Justice Department has filed a federal discrimination suit against the Board of Education, charging bias against pregnant teachers.
According to the complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Scammon Elementary School Principal Mary Weaver systematically discriminated against pregnant teachers, targeting them for termination and giving them lower performance evaluation ratings than they had previously earned after she learned they were pregnant.
"From 2009 to at least 2012, Principal Weaver targeted all teachers at Scammon who became pregnant and/or who returned to work at Scammon after their pregnancies by subjecting them to disparate treatment with regard to performance evaluation ratings, classroom observations, discipline, and threatened and/or actual termination," according to the complaint.
According to the Scammon website, the Portage Park school, at 4201 W. Henderson St., is ranked at Level 1, the district's highest rating, with Weaver having received CPS' Principal Achievement Award a year ago.
The lawsuit named two teachers who were alleged victims of discrimination, but added that "beginning in 2009, Principal Weaver targeted all eight teachers who became pregnant and/or returned to work at Scammon after their pregnancies."
The suit did not name any other Chicago Public Schools as being discriminatory.
The suit charges that Weaver responded to the news of one teacher's pregnancy by saying, "I can't believe you are doing this to me. You are going out right before testing!" It alleged that she told a teacher who was expressing breast milk, "That isn't over yet?" and "When will you be done with that?"
Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey called it "outrageous behavior which I thought we'd stopped in the 1920s."
While it was clearly extreme, Sharkey said that "as to the larger pattern of sort of retaliation and discrimination against people who principals don't like, that's a more widespread problem."
Sharkey called it "the tip of the iceberg" of principals violating teachers' rights.
"We have a file on this woman as thick as your arm," Sharkey said. "We've raised complaints about Mary Weaver at the very highest level."
Yet that CPS level, he added, saw fit to present her with the Principal Achievement Award only a year ago.
"It shows that CPS actually is encouraging principals to drive teachers to the point where they treat it like some kind of disease to want to have your own family or be pregnant," Sharkey said. "What I think it shows is there's a systematic attempt to hold up [as fine examples] principals who are the most aggressive, the most mercenary. Those are the principals getting promotions right now."
But CPS spokesman Bill McCaffrey said "Chicago Public Schools is strongly committed to creating a workplace that values and respects all employees and will not tolerate the kind of discrimination or retaliation that is alleged to have taken place at Scammon Elementary School.
"Chicago Public Schools intends to defend against the suit and stands behind its commitment to its Comprehensive Non-Discrimination Policy and to the fair treatment of pregnant employees," he said.
According to the Justice Department, the two teachers named in the suit filed charges of sex discrimination with the Chicago District Office of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
"The EEOC investigated the charges and determined that there was reasonable cause to believe discrimination occurred against the two charging parties as well as against other pregnant teachers," according to a Justice Department news release. "The EEOC was unsuccessful in its attempts to conciliate the matter before referring it to the Department of Justice."
The suit seeks a court order calling for the Board of Education to adopt policies preventing such discrimination, as well as monetary damages for the teachers involved.
"No woman should have to make a choice between her job and having a family,” said Vanita Gupta, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division. "Federal law requires employers to maintain a workplace free of discrimination on the basis of sex."
"Despite much progress, we continue to see the persistence of overt pregnancy discrimination, as well as the emergence of more subtle discriminatory practices in the workplace," added EEOC Chairwoman Jenny R. Yang.
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