Louisiana state officials overturn charter school's discriminatory pregnancy policy

Score one for human rights: Lousiana education officials have declared a state-funded charter school's draconian pregnancy policy illegal.

In a letter dated August 6, the Louisiana State Department of Education told the Delhi Charter School in Delhi, Louisiana, that it must change its Student Pregnancy Policy, which forces pregnant teens out of classrooms. Teens who were suspected of being pregnant were obligated to take a pregnancy test or face expulsion as well.

The letter, sent by Michael Higgins, the director of law and policy in the Education Department’s Office of School Choice, requires the school to revise its policy by August 16. According to TODAY.com, the state is asking the school to create a policy that “does not discriminate against pregnant students or students perceived to be pregnant” and says “under no circumstances shall the school require any student to take a pregnancy test.”

The action came in response to an American Civil Liberties Union complaint that the policy violated Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972, which prohibits federally funded schools from discriminating against students "on the basis of such student's pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy or recovery therefrom."

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Follow human-rights loving Miranda Nelson on Twitter at @charenton_.