Evangelical radio star Dave Ramsey's company says it fires employees if they have premarital sex

• An evangelical radio star's company said it fires employees who have premarital sex.
• Dave Ramsey's firm says it's fired 9 employees in 5 years for violating a "righteous living" code.
• The policy emerged in a court case in which an ex-employee says she was fired for being pregnant.

Ramsey Solutions, a company owned by the evangelical radio star Dave Ramsey, said in court filings that it has a policy of firing employees for having premarital sex.

The policy emerged in a legal dispute with a former employee, when the company cited the policy to support its argument that it had not discriminated against her.

Ramsey is a personal finance advisor whose radio show, The Dave Ramsey Show, is nationally syndicated and combines conservative Christian themes with financial advice.

According to the Ramsey Solutions company website, Ramsey founded the company in 1992, and the company provides help and advice for people seeking to "crush debt and build a legacy."

Caitlin O'Connor, a former administrative assistant in the company, alleged in a lawsuit filed last year in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee that she was fired because she got pregnant.

In a legal document seen by Insider, she said she was fired after she asked for paperwork related to taking maternity leave in June 2020.

In response, the company argued that she was fired not for being pregnant but because she is not married to the child's father.

O'Connor's complaint said that she worked for the company for four years and was fired seven days after alerting the HR department that she was pregnant and asking for paperwork related to maternity leave.

Her lawyers argue that firing her breached her federal right to take maternity leave as well as state laws in Tennessee. It described the firing as "particularly cruel" given that she also lost her health coverage.

In a later submission, also seen by Insider, attorneys for Ramsey Solutions said O'Connor was fired for breaching its standards, which says employees are expected to "demonstrate strong character all the time."

It described premarital sex as a a violation of the "strong character" provision and "inconsistent with Righteous Living."

The company said that it's fired eight other employees for having premarital sex in the past five years, including five men.

Religion News Service obtained recordings of a staff meeting in July in which Ramsey responded to the lawsuit and said the policy was his way of "trying to help people stay in line."

"I am sick of dealing with all this stuff," Ramsey said, according to the outlet. "I'm so tired of being falsely accused of being a jerk when all I'm doing is trying to help people stay in line."

In the filings, the company said that O'Connor had been aware that the company disapproved of unmarried pregnancies and that she admitted she had broken the policy.

It said that the company does not have a "standard procedure" for working out whether an employee had premarital sex, but said in this case it relied on O'Connor telling them so.

The filing said that under state law companies are free to fire employees for whatever reasons they choose, as long as they are not discriminating on the basis of race or sex or other characteristics and are not retaliating against them.

According to the Religion News Service report, the firing is part of what former employees described as a broader "cultlike" environment at the company.

It said Ramsey and his staff sought to exert control over the private lives of employees and that they hadn't introduced sufficient measures to protect employees from COVID-19. Other employees spoke out to defend the company to the outlet.

The company in a statement to the outlet said it contests many of "the facts, details and conclusions" of the report.