SW News: On Monday, the New Jersey Supreme Court in the United States ruled in favor of a Roman Catholic primary school that had fired a single teacher when she became pregnant, citing a breach of their employment contract.

In 2013, art instructor Victoria Crisitello claimed that the Church of St. Theresa had treated her unfairly at work. She told the school that she was expecting when the principal asked her to teach art full-time.

A few weeks later, the institution informed her that she could no longer serve at St. Theresa because she had broken the ethical code of the Archdiocese of Newark, which stipulated, in part, that staff must conduct themselves in a manner that is consistent with the discipline, norms and teachings of the Archdiocese.

The court agreed with the school after debating whether the instructor was let go for misconduct or because she was pregnant. "Teachers make the school," declared Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel of the nonprofit Becket, who presented the case to the court.

"The whole point of a religious school is to help parents educate their children in their faith," he continued.

“Schools need teachers who uphold their beliefs in order to accomplish that. This decision is a victory for all religious schools in the state of New Jersey, but it is especially important for Orthodox Jews,” Rassbach added.

“There are too many examples in history of governments interfering with Jewish schools, or worse. Today, the court did the right thing for Orthodox Jews and all other New Jerseyans by stopping this attempt to drag the government into direct control of religious schools,” the statement said.