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Date: April 24, 2023 10:47AM
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/24/pilot-healthcare-flights-fired-seminary-jobPilot who offered flights to women for medical care fired from seminary job
Greg Williams offered transportation for women seeking out-of-state care after the supreme court’s Dobbs decision last year
About three weeks after the US Supreme Court last year struck down the federal right to abortion, Greg Williams, a volunteer pilot for a group that provides free flights to people who need to travel for medical care, posted a Facebook message.
“If any women need to make an unexpected trip from the south to, say, Illinois or New Mexico or Virginia for reasons that are none of my business, I can provide safe, private air transport that would get you where you need to go and back the same day at a price that will work for you,” Williams wrote, on 28 June 2022.
Williams acknowledges the message mentioned an area which has largely outlawed abortion and three states which have acted to preserve access. The post did not explicitly mention abortion – because Williams’s day job was teaching Greek and Latin at a college for prospective Catholic priests near New Orleans.
The Benedictine-run St Joseph Seminary College has a policy against publicly expressing beliefs contrary to the established teachings of the Catholic Church, which stridently opposes abortion. Despite the fact that a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to recent polling, Williams wanted to comply with school policy. It didn’t matter. The school fired him a week later.
“Your Facebook post publicly and deliberately advocated a position contrary to the official teaching of the Catholic Church,” said the termination letter that St Joseph’s rector, Gregory Boquet, gave Williams on 5 July. “The decision is to terminate your employment … effective immediately.”
Williams, 40, has no real legal recourse to compel St Joseph to rehire him, according to lawyers he consulted and attorneys interviewed by the Guardian. Louisiana is an at-will employment state, which means employers can dismiss workers for any reason that is not blatantly unconstitutional.