Catholic School Teacher is Gay, Pregnant and - Now - Fired

Barbara Webb, left, and Kristen Laseki, right, are expecting a baby. They’re legally married, but Webb’s pregnancy resulted in her termination at the all-girl Catholic high school where she has taught for nine years. (Screenshot: WJBK video)

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Barbara Webb, 33, is gay and pregnant – and, now – jobless after the all-girl Catholic high school in Bloomfield Hills where she had taught for nine years declined her request for maternity leave and fired her.

The former chemistry teacher, volleyball and softball coach, and student government moderator at Marian High School learned in June that she and her spouse, Kristen Lasecki, were about to become parents. The two have been together for 5½ years and were legally married two years ago in Windsor.

For nearly a decade, Webb had lived quietly and done her job at the school, following a prescribed morality code she said worked like the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, WJBK, Channel 2, reports.

“If you publicly had some type of actions that were contradictory to Catholic teachings, then there would be an issue,” Webb said. “If you did and it was private, there seemed to be no issue.”

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Her termination letter didn’t specify her pregnancy as a reason for her dismissal, Webb told the Detroit Free Press, but she said it was clear in conversations with school administrators that they were concerned about public conduct that violated the morality code. “That you can’t hide a pregnancy from the public,” she said, adding “that is why I was terminated.”

She said she wasn’t asked how she got pregnant, but told school administrators it was a “non-traditional pregnancy.”

Webb was given a choice of signing a confidentiality agreement and going quietly, an option that would have continued her health insurance benefits through srpring, or being fired.

After about a week of personal soul searching, Webb chose the latter.

And she’s not being quiet.

“I’m not willingly leaving, so I wasn’t going to sign something that says I was,” Webb told WJBK. “This isn’t OK. I should be able to have a kid, too.”

On Aug. 27, she posted about her firing on Facebook, urging friends to “speak out against the hate.”

“My job can’t be saved, but the torment that the poor LGBT students at Marian must be feeling, the other LGBT staff, and those that are silenced by fear can be helped,” she wrote.

Webb told WJBK she hopes the post will inspire to put into practice what has long been preached at Marian High.

“They’re taught to stand up when they think an injustice has happened and be activists for what they believe in and they’re doing that,” Webb said. “So I’m still hopeful.”

The post has been shared at least 1,000 times, the Free Press said, and some parents are using the forum to vent their dismay.

“I was shocked – I was absolutely shocked,” said Debby Hannigan of Birmingham. Her daughter, Megan, took Webb’s advanced-placement chemistry class teacher and Hannigan said she was “inspirational” and her daughter’s “best teacher.” She often made herself available before and after school to help struggling students.

Webb’s dismissal is “not about her being able to do the job,” Hannigan said.

Students generally knew Webb was gay, according to Hannigan, but her sexual orientation wasn’t openly discussed. Webb told the Free Press she didn’t think the classroom was an appropraiate place for her to discuss her sexual orientation.

“I lived a private life at my home, and I didn’t feel the need to express that at such a detailed level,” Webb told the Free Press. “To be honest, I was trying to be discrete.”

Another mom whose two daughters had classes with Webb, Laurie Hix, called her the “epitome of professionalism.”

“Marian students will be at a loss for not having her as an instructor,” Dr. Mary Coffey told WJBK. “She was far and away the best science instructor my daughter had at Marian.”

Webb said the issue is larger than her personal circumstances. She hasn’t decided whether to take legal action. Michigan doesn’t offer employment protection to gays and lesbians, but she said she was fired because she’s pregnant, not because she’s gay.

“This is so much more than me or my school, it’s about a human right,” she told WJBK. “It’s a right for a woman to have a child.”

Bloomfield Hills attorney Deborah Gordon told the Free Press Webb may have a strong freedom of religion claim under the First Amendment.

“Pregnancy discrimination is flat-out illegal,” Gordon said. “There are exemptions for religious institutions. I don’t know if she’s going to fit into one of them here.”

School administrators declined to speak with the media other than to confirm that Webb’s employment ended Aug. 19. The Archdiocese of Detroit said it was aware of the situation but declined to comment.