In October, Teri James says her supervisor at San Diego Christian College called her to her office and got straight to the point: Was James pregnant?

James, 29, of El Cajon, Calif., was indeed pregnant – and she was also unmarried, a violation of school rules, according to the lawsuit she filed in San Diego County superior court. She says she was fired because, as the termination letter included in the suit stated: “Teri engaged in activity outside the scope of the Handbook and Community Covenant that does not build up the college’s mission.”

Speaking by phone with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, James said she felt humiliated. 

"I had to leave right after the meeting. I had to go into the office with all of my co-workers and say I'm leaving," James said. "I never came back so I don't know what my co-workers thought, but for me, it was humiliating. I felt like I was in trouble." 

Also insulting, James said, was that after firing her, the school offered a job to her then-fiancé – they are now married – even though it was known that he, too, engaged in premarital sex. He did not accept the job, she said. 

In filing the suit, James joins a group of women who in recent years have sued the religious schools that fired them for getting pregnant out of wedlock. In each case, the school pointed to moral codes, “community covenants” and handbooks that employees must sign, typically every year, promising to abide by school rules.

San Diego Christian College asks that its employees sign its “community covenant,” a two-page contract that asks its community, which includes employees and about 500 students on-site, to abstain from drugs, alcohol and tobacco and “abusive anger, malice, jealousy, lust, sexually immoral behavior including premarital sex, adultery, pornography and homosexuality, evil desires and prejudice based on race, sex or socioeconomic status.”

"We all had to sign it," James said. "I needed a job in this economy and so I never thought that anything would happen -- I just needed a job." 

Added Allred: "It does not say that you will be fired if you do not comply." 

San Diego Christian College did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The college has not responded to the suit. 

James, who had worked at the college as a financial aid specialist for two years, signed the letter in August, weeks before she became pregnant. She is currently six-and-a-half months pregnant with a boy, due in June. 

In two recent cases out of Ohio, two moms-to-be say they were fired by Catholic schools after they told the principals at their schools they were pregnant.   

In Kettering, Ohio, Ascension Catholic School first-grade teacher Kathleen Quinlan became pregnant with twin girls in the fall of 2011. Four days after Christmas that year, she was told she would lose her job, according to a lawsuit she filed in December in U.S. District Court in Southern Ohio.

The lawsuit notes that Quinlan was not an ordained minister and that she did not lead children in prayer. The point may seem random, but it is a reference to a unanimous Supreme Court decision handed down in 2011, Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC. The high court dismissed a lawsuit by a Christian schoolteacher who alleged she was fired for a disability, saying that churches and their schools may choose who will minister to their faithful.  

Court records include Ascension School’s letter to Quinlan, which stated that she was fired because she did not comply with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. But her suit says that her gender played a large role in her dismissal because it does not become obvious when men have premarital sex.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati filed a response to the suit this week, admitting that she had told church leaders she was pregnant and that she was fired for a breach of contract. 

In nearby Cincinnati, Ohio, Christa Dias, who oversaw computer systems at Holy Family and St. Lawrence schools, became pregnant by artificial insemination. According to the 2011 suit she filed in U.S. District Court, she says she was fired because church officials said artificial insemination is a violation of Church doctrine. 

The court handed down their decision last month, which did not come out in Dias' favor because she was living with a long-term female partner, a violation of the very contract she was saying the church had breached. But the court determined that she could not be considered a minister because she was not Catholic and was not responsible for religious instruction. The court said it wasn't enough to call her a role model simply because she was affiliated with a religious school.   

So can a school fire an unmarried, pregnant woman? 

Simply put, yes, if she violated a school contract. But it's not clear cut, as case law has not settled these claims, said spokeswoman Christine Nazer of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission via email. 

An organization can require employees not to engage in premarital sex but cannot fire her because she becomes pregnant, Nazer explained. 

Back in San Diego County, James says she hopes that the lawsuit will change the lives of women employed by Christian organizations. 

"I want to pave the way, say, Christian organizations, you can't necessarily fall back on this," she said. "You can't hurt people like this. If you say that you stand for love and mercy and grace -- stand for those who are weak." 

When Yahoo relayed to its employees on Friday that they could no longer work remotely, one of the reasons given was that “speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home.”

It may seem logical – the internal Yahoo memo leaked to The Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD.com said that some of the “best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions” – but workplace experts say that may not be true.

"Telecommuting is associated with significantly higher levels of job satisfaction, lower turnover intentions, reduced role stress, and higher supervisor-ratings of job performance," said Washington State University psychology professor Tahira Probst via email. 

Probst, who researches workplace issues, added that working from home doesn’t hurt worker-boss relations. “The data actually suggest telecommuting is associated with a more positive relationship with one’s supervisor.”

Telecommuting has been a growing trend over the past few years. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 13.4 million people worked from home at least part-time during a typical week in 2010, and the number of telecommuters in computer, science and engineering fields increased by 69 percent between 2000 and 2010.  

The federal government has pushed for its employees to be ready to work remotely, should disaster strike. Last fall, thousands of workers were forced to work remotely after Superstorm Sandy knocked out power to much of lower Manhattan. 

Natural disaster aside, when it comes to day-to-day work, Mayer may not be alone in wanting her employees to put in more face time. Google Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette didn’t seem keen on telecommuters on a recent trip to Australia. When asked how many Google employees work remotely, Pichette replied, according to Sydney Morning Herald: “As few as possible.”

After the Yahoo memo about telecommuting was leaked Friday, critics were swift to call the move anti-woman and anti-family. But the Census reported that more men (51.3 percent) worked from home. Of telecommuters, 64.5 percent reported that they did not have children younger than 18 present in the home.

Carol Roth, a brand consultant for the virtual office space company Regus, argued that workplace flexibility allows employers to retain the best talent.  

“I was disappointed to hear about this mandate from Yahoo because they’re a tech company and it’s made us more flexible and allowed us to work from anywhere,” Roth said. “To say that the only way to be connected is if you’re side by side with somebody is completely backward and at odds with their own mission.” 

Susan Cain, author of "Quiet," a book about introverts in the workplace, said she thought Yahoo’s decision could hinder creativity.

“The kind of person who is in Silicon Valley is a person who is at the top of their game as an engineer and has a creative mind,” Cain said. “Also it’s a type of person who wants to control their own destiny much more than working for a corporation. They want to dictate their own working terms. They tend to be pretty committed to what they’re doing.”

In an online (nonscientific) survey, NBCNews.com readers also questioned the policy.

My quality of work is much better by telecommuting than by actually working in the office. I'm an introvert and I get stressed out by being around people. When I'm at home working, I can get so much work done because I'm not distracted and stressed out by all those around me.

Wrote another: 

Some managers think that the only way work gets done is to perform bed checks to make sure everyone is at their desk at a certain time and think work only occurs when they are breathing down their necks. Other bad managers can't express what they want done unless they are waving their arms in front of the worker and pointing vaguely at what they want done.

But I've also seen workers that can't hold their attention to the screen when they could be puttering in the garden or in the garage.

Others were more sympathetic.

An employer has a right to ask people to actually COME to work, I think. On the other hand, EVERY employer, even if they don't allow daily telecommuting, should be increasing their family-friendly policies to allow for plentiful personal/sick/vacation time and some flexibility with scheduling when needed. The whole country could benefit from that!

Probst said Yahoo’s decision could result in more stress, more work-family conflict and “greater intentions to quit working for Yahoo.”

“I don’t think that is what Yahoo is hoping for as a result of their decision,” she said, “but it may be what they see.”