Eliane Morissens | |
|---|---|
 Morissens in the Netherlands in 1982 | |
| Born | Eliane Willie Fernande Morissens 10 August 1927 Etterbeek, Belgium |
| Died | 9 December 2006 (aged 79) La Garde, France |
| Occupation(s) | Teacher, activist |
| Years active | 1957–1988 |
| Known for | Challenging discriminatory employment policies against LGBT workers |
Eliane Morissens (10 August 1927 – 9 December 2006) was a Belgian teacher and activist. Raised as a feminist, she was active as a trade unionist and socialist. Morissens studied to become a chemical engineer, but was employed as a teacher, as there were few other options for women in her era. She worked her way up to assistant headmistress of a provincial technical college but in 1977 was denied a promotion to become the head of the school. When asked in 1980 to appear on a television broadcast about lesbians, she decided to participate. During the broadcast, she stated that she had been denied the promotion because of her lesbianism. She commented on the irony of the school board being unwilling to put a lesbian in charge of girl students, but having no concern about appointing a man for the post.
Morissens was terminated from her job without pay two days after the broadcast. The school board denied that the decision was based on her sexuality. The board claimed their decision was rooted in professional misconduct, since she had questioned their authority on the television program. She asked for a review of the case by the provincial appeals committee, which upheld the decision in 1982, but allowed her limited compensation under early retirement. She then appealed to the Council of State, the highest court in the country. In 1984, the court upheld her termination and denied that her freedom of expression had been violated. Her plight became a cause célèbre in the LGBT community throughout Europe and the Americas, garnering international press coverage and demonstrations. The international LGBT community raised funds for her personal use and legal fees, campaigned for her reinstatement, lobbied legislators and teachers' unions, and continued with protests on her behalf.
Embarrassed by the international attention, the Flemish Socialist Party introduced a measure in 1982, which passed in 1985, to repeal article 372bis of the Belgian Penal Code, which set a higher age of consent for homosexual relations. That year, Morissens filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. In 1988, the court dismissed her appeal, but acknowledged her freedom of expression was abridged; however, they found the curtailment justifiable because as a teacher she was required to maintain a professional demeanor. The European Union adopted legislation in 2000, to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation following recommendations by the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, which had reviewed legal challenges of discrimination including Morissens' case. She died in southern France in 2006 and is remembered for bringing the issue of employment discrimination against homosexuals to worldwide attention.