John Bligh
- Retired teacher
Carol Morey, a retired high school French teacher who played a role in the battle to prevent pregnant teachers from being fired, died on Dec. 2, 2025, at age 92 after a long battle with Lewy body disease.
The “forever teacher,” as her daughter, Chapter Leader Victoria Morey of PS 118 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, described her, retired in 2001 after a career during which she taught French at Seward Park, LaGuardia, Humanities and Stuyvesant high schools in Manhattan as well as at Curtis HS on Staten Island.
Carol became a teacher after working in the international arena.
After completing her undergraduate studies, Carol moved to Paris, Morey said.
“The African countries were getting independence from French colonial rule at that time,” Morey said. “My mother was very interested in that and got involved. So, while she was in Paris, she also traveled to Tunisia and Algeria in North Africa.
“When she returned to the United States, she went to work for these newly liberated countries at their missions and, since she had become fluent in the French language, also worked at the United Nations.”
But, Morey said, her mom “grew tired of cocktail parties with African diplomats” and became a teacher because she felt that career would be “more rewarding.”
Starting her career as French teacher Carol Hiller at Seward Park HS, she met Donald Morey, the school’s UFT chapter leader, social studies teacher and founding UFT member, while he was placing notices in members’ mailboxes. She offered to help. Romance followed, and by Christmas, Mademoiselle Hiller had married and become Madame Morey.
Victoria Morey noted that during the lengthy UFT strike in 1968, her mom volunteered in teaching sessions off school property to help keep students — many of whom were new immigrants to the United States — from falling behind in their studies.
“She and her colleagues taught classes in parks, in their apartments, anywhere but across the picket line,” Victoria Morey said.
After becoming pregnant with her first child in 1969, Carol was abruptly fired from her job. At the time, women could be forced to quit or be fired once an administrator determined that she was “showing.”
“Even with a note from her doctor saying it was fine for her to work, she was fired,” Victoria Morey said.
She eventually returned to the classroom following the birth, but when Carol was expecting her second child, she joined in a historic class-action lawsuit that ultimately helped to make it illegal to fire someone for being pregnant.
“It was huge, groundbreaking,” Victoria Morey said. “My mom was a fierce educator and unassuming social justice advocate.”
After retiring in 2001, Carol joined the UFT’s Retired Teachers Chapter, where she took courses through the Si Beagle Learning Center program. She also mentored young teachers, Victoria Morey said.
Besides being a “forever teacher,” Carol was an avid bicyclist and environmentalist, her daughter said.
Besides Victoria, Carol is survived by son-in-law Joseph Stephans, grandsons Dean and Cody, and dear friend Jennifer Browne, the chapter leader at Brownsville Academy HS in Brooklyn. She was predeceased by her husband, Donald, and eldest daughter, Claudia.
