The Burning Time Never Ended
Sacked White Witch Settles Court Case
A teaching assistant and practising white witch who claimed she was sacked for her beliefs has reached a settlement with her former employers.
The end of the dispute was announced a day before both parties were due to attend a further tribunal hearing.
Sommer de la Rosa, 34, had claimed she was unfairly dismissed from Dorothy Stringer School in Brighton, Sussex.
Brighton and Hove City Council said on Thursday that both parties had reached a confidential settlement.
A statement said: "The parties wish to take this opportunity to express their regret that their working relationship ended as it did and that it was necessary to proceed to an employment tribunal.
"The parties are pleased that the matter has now been satisfactorily resolved."
Miss de la Rosa, who was an assistant in the religious studies and music department, took her dispute to an employment tribunal in March.
She said she was asked not to wear a pentagram - a symbol of her faith.
The Hove woman had worked at the school for eight months when she was sacked in May 2006.
Education officials said the dismissal was due to poor attendance and inappropriate disclosures to students.
Officials denied banning her from wearing the pentagram or mentioning her faith.
They said it was better that religious symbols remained hidden in order not to distract pupils.
Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2007/05/03 17:39:01 GMT
© BBC MMVII
This is some of what she had to put up with (from a prior article) ...
Persecuted for Witchcraft
White witch 'sacked for days off'
A white witch has been accused at an employment tribunal of using her beliefs as a scapegoat for her being sacked from a school in Sussex.
Sommer De La Rosa, 34, of Moyne Close, Hove, was sacked as a teaching assistant from the Dorothy Stringer School, Brighton, last May.
She claims it was a result of prejudice against her Wicca faith, but the school said it was due to poor attendance.
On Friday, she accused her line manager of comparing her religion to communism.
Ms De La Rosa told the Hove tribunal Ros Stephens had been "openly discriminatory", stating her faith could lead to "complaints of tainted teaching methods".
"This made me feel like a freak and that my beliefs were wrong," she said.
But Mrs Stephens told the hearing: "I was saying, 'If you have a strong belief then maybe it's just best not to mention it at all because it's leading you into unknown territory'."
She also accused Ms De La Rosa of using a meeting to discuss her poor attendance record to talk about her faith instead.
She said: "It was dominating the whole meeting which was meant to be about attendance."
Mrs Stephens added that her comments about communism had not been meant to be offensive.
"I did not compare Wiccanism to communism, I can't stress that enough. It was not a comparison between the two, it was an analogy of the strong convictions."
She also told the hearing that Ms De La Rosa had "constantly questioned" her about whether she should say she was a white witch in the classroom.
"She was struggling to know how much of herself to give in the classroom... I offered her guidelines. These are not meant to condemn her," Mrs Stephens explained.
But Ms De La Rosa, who worked in the school's religious studies and music departments for eight months until May last year, said the guidelines had made her "physically sick".
"I felt angry and appalled that the discriminatory comments and attitudes towards me and my religion were put into writing," she said.
She has also claimed that she was banned from discussing her religion and wearing a pentagram - a symbol of her faith.
The school and Brighton and Hove City Council said Ms De La Rosa was sacked due to poor attendance and inappropriate disclosures to pupils.
She had 21.5 days off during her six-month probationary period.
Mrs Stephens said her attendance rate had been 20% - equivalent to one day a week at work during the school calendar.
Mrs Stephens said Ms De La Rosa was employed as a departmental assistant and her duties were primarily to provide sick cover for teachers.
"We were forced to bring in additional staff in order to cover staff she should have covered," she said.
The tribunal was adjourned until 4 May.
Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2007/03/23 18:48:34 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Elsewhere, "Black Magic" Couple Burned Alive
An elderly Indian husband and wife were burnt to death after villagers accused them of practicing black magic, tied them together on a pyre and set them on fire, police said Thursday.
"The aged couple died screaming for help," said police superintendent P.V. Sunil Kumar.
Sayanna, 70, and his 61-year-old wife, Pochamma, were set ablaze after being doused with kerosene.
Both were farm laborers near the southern city of Hyderabad who also practiced traditional medicine. Police have arrested six villagers for the incident.
Belief in black magic is common in some parts of rural India, despite the country's robust economic growth and cutting-edge high-technology industries.
Dozens of women are murdered each year after being accused of witchcraft.
Last year, a barber in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh killed his four-year-old son by slitting his throat with a razor after the man started seeing visions of the Hindu goddess Kali demanding a sacrifice.
The Burning Times never ended. We are still in them. Don't forget - just because a tree fell down in a forest where nobody could hear it, it might or might not make a sound - but it doesn't alter the fact that the bloody tree still fell down.
X-posted to fiat_knox. I used to get shit from people like this all the damn time at work. Maybe I ought to have pressed the witchcraft persecution angle more at the tribunal, screwed my former employers out of even more cash.
Next time ...
A teaching assistant and practising white witch who claimed she was sacked for her beliefs has reached a settlement with her former employers.
The end of the dispute was announced a day before both parties were due to attend a further tribunal hearing.
Sommer de la Rosa, 34, had claimed she was unfairly dismissed from Dorothy Stringer School in Brighton, Sussex.
Brighton and Hove City Council said on Thursday that both parties had reached a confidential settlement.
A statement said: "The parties wish to take this opportunity to express their regret that their working relationship ended as it did and that it was necessary to proceed to an employment tribunal.
"The parties are pleased that the matter has now been satisfactorily resolved."
Miss de la Rosa, who was an assistant in the religious studies and music department, took her dispute to an employment tribunal in March.
She said she was asked not to wear a pentagram - a symbol of her faith.
The Hove woman had worked at the school for eight months when she was sacked in May 2006.
Education officials said the dismissal was due to poor attendance and inappropriate disclosures to students.
Officials denied banning her from wearing the pentagram or mentioning her faith.
They said it was better that religious symbols remained hidden in order not to distract pupils.
Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2007/05/03 17:39:01 GMT
© BBC MMVII
This is some of what she had to put up with (from a prior article) ...
Persecuted for Witchcraft
White witch 'sacked for days off'
A white witch has been accused at an employment tribunal of using her beliefs as a scapegoat for her being sacked from a school in Sussex.
Sommer De La Rosa, 34, of Moyne Close, Hove, was sacked as a teaching assistant from the Dorothy Stringer School, Brighton, last May.
She claims it was a result of prejudice against her Wicca faith, but the school said it was due to poor attendance.
On Friday, she accused her line manager of comparing her religion to communism.
Ms De La Rosa told the Hove tribunal Ros Stephens had been "openly discriminatory", stating her faith could lead to "complaints of tainted teaching methods".
"This made me feel like a freak and that my beliefs were wrong," she said.
But Mrs Stephens told the hearing: "I was saying, 'If you have a strong belief then maybe it's just best not to mention it at all because it's leading you into unknown territory'."
She also accused Ms De La Rosa of using a meeting to discuss her poor attendance record to talk about her faith instead.
She said: "It was dominating the whole meeting which was meant to be about attendance."
Mrs Stephens added that her comments about communism had not been meant to be offensive.
"I did not compare Wiccanism to communism, I can't stress that enough. It was not a comparison between the two, it was an analogy of the strong convictions."
She also told the hearing that Ms De La Rosa had "constantly questioned" her about whether she should say she was a white witch in the classroom.
"She was struggling to know how much of herself to give in the classroom... I offered her guidelines. These are not meant to condemn her," Mrs Stephens explained.
But Ms De La Rosa, who worked in the school's religious studies and music departments for eight months until May last year, said the guidelines had made her "physically sick".
"I felt angry and appalled that the discriminatory comments and attitudes towards me and my religion were put into writing," she said.
She has also claimed that she was banned from discussing her religion and wearing a pentagram - a symbol of her faith.
The school and Brighton and Hove City Council said Ms De La Rosa was sacked due to poor attendance and inappropriate disclosures to pupils.
She had 21.5 days off during her six-month probationary period.
Mrs Stephens said her attendance rate had been 20% - equivalent to one day a week at work during the school calendar.
Mrs Stephens said Ms De La Rosa was employed as a departmental assistant and her duties were primarily to provide sick cover for teachers.
"We were forced to bring in additional staff in order to cover staff she should have covered," she said.
The tribunal was adjourned until 4 May.
Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2007/03/23 18:48:34 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Elsewhere, "Black Magic" Couple Burned Alive
An elderly Indian husband and wife were burnt to death after villagers accused them of practicing black magic, tied them together on a pyre and set them on fire, police said Thursday.
"The aged couple died screaming for help," said police superintendent P.V. Sunil Kumar.
Sayanna, 70, and his 61-year-old wife, Pochamma, were set ablaze after being doused with kerosene.
Both were farm laborers near the southern city of Hyderabad who also practiced traditional medicine. Police have arrested six villagers for the incident.
Belief in black magic is common in some parts of rural India, despite the country's robust economic growth and cutting-edge high-technology industries.
Dozens of women are murdered each year after being accused of witchcraft.
Last year, a barber in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh killed his four-year-old son by slitting his throat with a razor after the man started seeing visions of the Hindu goddess Kali demanding a sacrifice.
The Burning Times never ended. We are still in them. Don't forget - just because a tree fell down in a forest where nobody could hear it, it might or might not make a sound - but it doesn't alter the fact that the bloody tree still fell down.
X-posted to fiat_knox. I used to get shit from people like this all the damn time at work. Maybe I ought to have pressed the witchcraft persecution angle more at the tribunal, screwed my former employers out of even more cash.
Next time ...