With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, a fourth grade teacher from Ohio has filed a federal suit against Ohio’s largest teacher union for religious discrimination:

Columbus, OH (December 4, 2008) – A fourth grade teacher from the Coldwater Exempted Village School District has filed a federal suit against the state’s largest teacher union for forcing her to pay compulsory union fees to fund the union whose activities violate her religious faith.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, providing the teacher with free legal aid, filed the suit this week in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division.

Kathy Hart, an active member of the Catholic Church, has been a teacher in the Ohio public school system since August 1996. Because the public school she works in is unionized, she works under a collective bargaining agreement which forces her to pay compulsory union fees to the National Education Association (NEA) union and its state and local affiliates – the Ohio Education Association (OEA) union and the Coldwater Teachers Organization (CTO) union. Due to her faith, Hart objects to the unions’ positions on abortion and special rights for homosexuals.

Hart had asked that the union divert her compulsory fees to a charity, thereby accommodating her religious objections to supporting financially unions she believes to be involved in immoral activities.

Read the rest of the Foundation’s press release here.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.