FINAL JUDGMENT
Plaintiff Sandra Pocklington has been employed by defendants as a teacher of first grade pupils. She was advised by her physician that she might expect to be delivered of a child on or about August 21 of this year. Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 3. Plaintiff gave this information to the school authorities and requested a leave of absence to begin June 13, 1972. The request was denied and she was instead required to begin her leave of absence on April 8, 1972, after four and a half months of pregnancy, in accordance with a long-standing policy on maternity *164leaves.* Plaintiff invokes the jurisdiction of this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1343(1), (3), challenging the acts of the school authorities as being a deprivation under color of state law of rights secured to her by the fourteenth amendment.
On April 21, 1972, plaintiff obtained a preliminary injunction requiring the defendants to permit her to resume her normal teaching duties beginning April 24, 1972. The question now before the Court is whether the preliminary injunction should be made final and whether defendants owe plaintiff wages for the two-week period she was-on involuntary maternity leave. The Court today holds that the injunction should be made final and that back wages should be awarded.
The only evidence adduced subsequent to the hearing on the preliminary injunction, a deposition of testimony by a physician, amply supports the finding that classifying pregnant school teachers for the purpose of defendants’ mandatory leave policy has no rational basis. Deposition of James F. Hayes, M. D. Dr. Hayes testified: “I know of no medical reason why a pregnant school teacher who is progressing normally should not continue to work practically until her due date.” At 11. When asked if there were any other view within the medical profession, Dr. Hayes answered: “I am not familiar with any other.” At 17. Although defendants were requested to furnish the Court with evidence of medical justification for the maternity leave policy, none was' forthcoming.
Other courts have treated similar situations as presenting an equal protection problem since pregnant school teachers are treated differently from other school teachers for purposes of applying a mandatory leave policy. On this rationale, they have granted relief to plaintiffs in Mrs. Pocklington’s position. Williams v. San Francisco Unified School District, 340 F.Supp. 438 (N.D.Cal., filed March 21 1972); Cohen v. Chesterfield County School Board, 326 F.Supp. 1159 (E.D.Va. 1971); Carruth v. Avila, Civil No. 237274 (Super.Ct.Ariz., filed October 26, 1971). Contra, La Fleur v. Cleveland Board of Education, 326 F.Supp. 1208 (N.D.Ohio 1971); Cerra v. East Stroudsburg Area School District, 3 Pa. Cmwlth. 665, 285 A.2d 206 (1971). The Court today holds that plaintiff has been denied equal protection of the laws by the application of defendants’ maternity leave policy.
*165As an independent ground of decision, the Court today holds that defendants’ policy is a denial of due process in that it denies the individual teacher an opportunity to establish her medical fitness to continue teaching, by relying on a presumption which is factually unjustified. Cf. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (April 3, 1972).