Warren urges women to share stories of pregnancy discrimination in wake of accusations she lied about losing job

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) urged women to share their stories of pregnancy discrimination after Warren, one of the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, faced accusations that she lied over her own story of losing a job when she was pregnant in 1971. 

“When I was 22 and finishing my first year of teaching, I had an experience millions of women will recognize. By June I was visibly pregnant — and the principal told me the job I’d already been promised for the next year would go to someone else,” Warren tweeted Tuesday, repeating a story she’s told on the campaign trail. 

“This was 1971, years before Congress outlawed pregnancy discrimination — but we know it still happens in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. We can fight back by telling our stories. I tell mine on the campaign trail, and I hope to hear yours,” she added.

This was 1971, years before Congress outlawed pregnancy discrimination—but we know it still happens in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. We can fight back by telling our stories. I tell mine on the campaign trail, and I hope to hear yours.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 8, 2019

{mosads}Warren’s tweet came after some media outlets suggested Warren was not being truthful about her explanation for losing her job.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that minutes from a Riverdale (N.J.) Board of Education meeting show the board voted unanimously to extend to Warren a second year contract for her teaching position. Minutes from a meeting two months later, according to the Free Beacon, say Warren’s resignation was accepted with regret.

The Free Beacon story also noted that Meagan Day of Jacobin, a socialist magazine, reported on remarks Warren gave in a 2007 interview at the University of California Berkeley where she seemed to give a different explanation for leaving the teaching job.

“I worked in a public school system with the children with disabilities. I did that for a year, and then that summer I didn’t have the education courses, so I was on an ’emergency certificate,’ it was called,” Warren said in the interview from 2007. “I went back to graduate school and took a couple of courses in education and said, ‘I don’t think this is going to work out for me.’ I was pregnant with my first baby, so I had a baby and stayed home for a couple of years.”

In an interview with CBS News on Monday, she stood by her story. Warren told CBS News she was offered the job in April, as the minutes reportedly indicate, but a few months later when she was visibly pregnant she was told someone else would be hired. 

“All I know is I was 22 years old, I was 6 months pregnant, and the job that I had been promised for the next year was going to someone else. The principal said they were going to hire someone else for my job,” she told CBS.

In response to questions about the 2007 interview, Warren told CBS in a statement from her campaign she decided to “open up” about some aspects of her life after she was elected to the Senate in 2012. 

Warren has used her personal story on the campaign trail to advocate for her progressive policy proposals, including free four-year college tuition, an ambitious student loan forgiveness program and a sweeping plan for affordable child care.