Houston health care company fires Alexia Palma for being unwilling
to promote contraception
Houston,
Texas –
Today, on behalf of its client, Alexia Palma, First Liberty Institute filed a
legal complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
charging Palma’s former employers, Legacy Community Health (LCH), with
religious discrimination. In the complaint, Palma, a young Catholic woman, says
that her employers fired her after she requested a simple religious
accommodation from a task that constituted less than 2% of her job.
Palma
worked as a health educator at LCH, a clinic for low-income patients in
Houston’s inner city.
“I
emigrated from Guatemala to America as a child,” Palma said. “Finding this job,
where I could serve those in need in my community, was my American dream come
true.”
As a
health educator, Palma taught many classes, but only one conflicted with her
religious beliefs: the class on contraception. Because of her Catholic faith,
Palma requested a simple religious accommodation – to be able to show a video
on birth control instead of personally advocating for contraception. Her
supervisors agreed, and the arrangement worked well for a year and a
half.
In June
2016, after Palma was placed under new management, she was called into a
meeting with company executives. Ms. Amy Leonard, the Vice President of the
Public Health Department at LCH, gave Palma an ultimatum – “put aside” her
religious beliefs or be terminated.
Palma
reminded Ms. Leonard that teaching the birth control class was less than 2% of
her job. She requested an accommodation to allow her to continue showing the
video or to allow another employee, who had volunteered to teach the class, to
substitute teach the class for her. LCH refused her accommodation request and
she was terminated.
“I really
loved my job and my patients, but I couldn’t do what the company was asking,”
Palma says. “Through my difficult childhood of abuse and abandonment, God has
always been faithful to me, so I must be faithful to him. My faith comes
first.”
“The
company gave Alexia an ultimatum – violate your faith or be fired,” Jeremy Dys,
Senior Counsel for First Liberty Institute, the religious freedom law firm
representing Palma, says. “That’s a violation of federal law and it is blatant
religious discrimination.”
On December
21, First Liberty Institute filed an official charge with the EEOC on behalf of
Palma, alleging that LCH engaged in religious discrimination.
“No one
should be fired over their religious beliefs,” Dys says.
Read more
and view legal documents at FirstLiberty.org/Palma
About
First Liberty Institute
First Liberty Institute is
the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending
religious freedom for all Americans.
No comments:
Post a Comment