Oakland Diocese requiring educators to conform to church teachings Educators in the East Bay must sign morality pledge

Tim Newman, who has taught science at Bishop O'Dowd High School for 23 years, is undecided about signing the pledge. Tim Newman, who has taught science at Bishop O'Dowd High School for 23 years, is undecided about signing the pledge. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Oakland Diocese requiring educators to conform to church teachings 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Educators at East Bay Catholic schools must sign a new contract Friday with the Diocese of Oakland pledging to conform to church teachings outside the workplace - leaving some, particularly non-Catholics, wrestling with a professional and moral dilemma.

In contention is an updated clause specifically outlining what teachers of the diocese's 54 schools do in their personal lives.

"In both the employee's personal and professional life, the employee is expected to model and promote behavior in conformity with the teaching of the Roman Catholic faith in matters of faith and morals, and to do nothing that tends to bring discredit to the school or to the Diocese of Oakland," the new contract says.

The previous contract did not delineate between a teacher's personal and professional life.

The clause is creating anxiety in a diocese where 18 percent of the 1,217 teachers are not Catholic, according to church statistics.

The new contracts were due May 1, but some sympathetic school administrators gave teachers until Friday to sign.

State and federal employment law offers little protection from being fired for violating church teaching - sparking fear that teachers could lose their jobs for using contraception, having premarital sex, trying to conceive a child by artificial insemination or marrying someone of the same sex.

Tim Newman, who has taught science at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland for 23 years, says some of his colleagues won't sign a contract forcing them to be disingenuous. Others worry the contract gives the diocese a reason to discipline them for actions outside the classroom.

"I will lose good teachers in my department," he said.

'Not a witch hunt'

Diocese spokesman Mike Brown said "this is not a witch hunt." He said the new language is an attempt by Oakland Bishop Michael Barber, who took over last year, to "be more clear about the contract."

"It simply states what was inferred before from a new bishop's perspective," Brown said. "There is no list of behaviors from this diocese."

Similar controversies have popped up elsewhere in the nation, most notably in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati this year, where a new contract banned teachers from "public support of or publicly living together outside marriage, public support of or sexual activity out of wedlock, public support of or homosexual lifestyle."

In California, earlier this year Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa tried to require educators to sign a morality clause that described contraception, abortion and gay marriage as "modern errors" that "gravely offend human dignity." In March, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that Vasa included the language to avoid legal challenges from teachers who were fired for conduct that contradicts Catholic teaching. He later backed down from the proposal.

The contract in San Francisco's Catholic schools requires educators "not to engage in conduct contrary to such (Catholic) principles in the course of Teacher's academic or personal life."

Letter from the bishop

In a March letter explaining the changes to diocese employees, Barber wrote that for months California's bishops have been discussing "the importance of Catholic identity and especially how it is expressed in our Catholic schools. ... (A)n appropriate way to honor this commitment is to spell it out in the contract or work agreement each person signs each year."

Legally, such contracts would be protected by the First Amendment, said David Rosenfeld, who teaches at the UC Berkeley School of Law and has represented teachers unions.

"A private school like this has the right to impose any religious restrictions it wants," he says. "If they got wind that somebody was buying contraceptives, they could fire them."

Still, Rosenfeld said, the change is "a bizarre, bizarre thing," given that Catholic schools have shown no hesitation in hiring non-Catholics for years. "They've tolerated that, if not encouraged it, as long as you don't preach your religion in the classroom."

Facing that legal reality and their own consciences, teachers were agonizing over their dilemma at a faculty meeting this week at O'Dowd, said Bonnie Sussman, a teacher representative at the school.

"A lot of them said, 'I can't afford not to sign,' " said Sussman, who has taught in Catholic schools for 40 years and is not Catholic. At 63 years old, she said, "I'm in that category, too.

"I love O'Dowd. I don't want to leave. But the question is: Do you want to fight discrimination from within the system or from the outside?" Sussman said. "There are some fabulous teachers who in good conscience say, 'I can't sign it.' And if that happens, ultimately, the Catholic Church loses out."

Some East Bay parents fear the controversy surrounding the new language will spill over to the classroom. Newman, who has not yet decided whether he will sign the contract, worries about the message it sends to prospective students and parents, who over the years have asked him whether a Catholic school would, for instance, be accepting of a student who is gay.

"I always say, 'Yes,' " said Newman, who is not Catholic. "But now I'm kind of lying about that, in terms of what I sign."

Gives a parent pause

Adam Byer, who is the parent of a child at an East Bay Catholic school, said if teachers are dismissed because of what they do in their private life, he would "think long and hard if I want my daughter to be in that school."

Some teachers like Sussman are proposing that educators work under the old contract for this year while they discuss any proposed changes with the diocese.

But at this late date, Brown, the diocese's spokesman, said: "It's clear that's not going to be the case.

"It's in each principal's best interest to know who will be teaching at the school in the fall," he said.