An interesting counterpoint to this is Julie Ann Horvath, who leveraged Twitter to expose a toxic culture at Github (1) and eventually forced the CEO and his wife to leave the company (2), and has kept Github and certain employees on the defensive (3).
She may have to deal with legal repercussions because of her actions on Twitter, but I can't help but think that nothing would have changed had she kept silent or quietly hired an employment lawyer after being forced out.
It's an interesting counter-point, but I'm not sure it's an example to be lauded; most of her complaints were found to have no basis in fact, and she's likely poisoned any future legal suit she might wish to bring.
Additionally, she's incurred significant personal liability in the process.
> She may have to deal with legal repercussions because of her actions on Twitter, but I can't help but think that nothing would have changed had she kept silent or quietly hired an employment lawyer after being forced out.
I can't help but think the court of public opinion has been used to bludgeon an opponent, not achieve justice.
The public absolutely lacks the facts necessary to judge the merits of the accusations, and the objectivity necessary won't be forthcoming through inciting angry internet mobs. This wasn't something as simple as Sterling's overt racism -- and even then, the public's ability to observe and act on his overt racism wasn't possible until it saw the cold light of day through objective and verifiable evidence.
The safest and likely most productive way for GitHub to be held to account, if GitHub as an organization needed to be held to account, was by providing a clear, objective statement of the allegations, vetted by her lawyer, and if possible, a tenacious lawsuit and refusal to settle for anything less than a public statement.
While I'm not sufficiently informed on the daily operations at GitHub, "basis in fact" has nothing to do with whether a C-level remains employed or not. Companies these days are hypersensitive about their reputations and you'll be considered a liability for a single misconstrued statement despite years of stellar (and most importantly, completely politically sanitary) work.
You may even get owned for politically incorrect behavior that occurs in private and completely external to your professional affiliation. Off the top of my head I can cite a handful of such ousters that have occurred in the last month, including but not limited to Brendan Eich and Donald Sterling.
We're in a really bad spot right now. The principles that undergird free society are not well regarded anymore. Make a single statement that stirs the ire of the reigning corporate thought police and you're done for, no matter how innocuous it may or may not be. People don't care about the facts, it's all about perception, and if you're perceived as a thought criminal in any of the many varied channels now considered taboo, you're "toxic" to the company. It's as simple as that.
Considering this status, perhaps aggression and even subtlety are justified if you're seeking to defend yourself against the types of accusations that would get a toxic label applied to your name.
Eich's public behavior was absolutely material to his work. You can't work to break apart gay families and undermine gay people's constitutional rights and then expect gay people to be be perfectly comfortable working for you. And Mozilla's board reasonably felt that material to him being the CEO of a company. Well, that or his demonstrated inability to handle a corporate crisis with a big press element.
* Marriage is not a constitutional right for anyone
* The rules that say the government is not allowed to define marriage further than "two humans say they want to live together and want us to give them stuff for it" are very new, and Eich was fighting to not have this become the rule.
* Gay people should be perfectly comfortable working for people who supported Prop 8 or they're going to have a hard time, as there's a > 50% chance that a random stranger will have done so.
* Eich's ideas on what relationships the government should reward does not materially affect his performance as CEO. He'd already promised to keep Mozilla's inclusive policies.
* If you really want to say gay people would find it impossible to work for Eich, I find it hard to believe that any such persons at Mozilla are less replaceable than Brendan Eich. If they do resign in protest, Eich would've had no trouble replacing them. However, Mozilla's official statement indicated the vast majority of the company supported him, with "less than ten" current employees threatening resignation if Eich maintained his post.
* The board didn't fire or pressure Eich to leave. He resigned voluntarily as damage control. Mozilla's official statement is clear about this.
Casting anyone who supported Prop 8 as a villain is a wholly untenable philosophical stance. It condemns the majority of Californians and Americans. You can't live life with that large of a chip on your shoulder, it's completely disruptive. If you are doing so, I recommend you seek a shoulder-chip repair professional before further damage to self and others is perpetrated by political intolerance.
* The reason Prop 8 was was a constitutional amendment is that equality before the law is a right enshrined in the California constitution.
* Immaterial.
* There is a difference between "voted for" and "funded". Further, Eich refused to say whether his opinion had changed. And obviously, you don't get to say what gay people are comfortable about.
* Incorrect. Promising to be bigoted only in his off hours is not a promise that will convince everybody.
* Your view apparently is that as long as you're not powerful, injustice is fine. That's not a view many share. Especially at Mozilla.
* Fair enough.
At one point vast majorities of people opposed interracial marriage. And, earlier, were in favor of slavery for black people, an institution maintained through brutality and torture. I'm not saying those people are villains, but I am saying they were wrong, and bigoted in a way that was deeply problematic. And I'm saying the same thing about people who supported Prop 8. Thankfully, as the statistics show, people are more quickly waking up to their anti-gay bigotry, so it's a dead issue here in California, and it soon will be in the rest of the nation.
> Gay people should be perfectly comfortable working for people who supported Prop 8 or they're going to have a hard time, as there's a > 50% chance that a random stranger will have done so.
You're seriously arguing that people should be okay with being oppressed, as long as a lot of people are oppressing them? Like, maybe we should be flattered by all the attention?
Sterling? Is this seriously what we're doing now? A corporation removes a staunch racist from a position with hiring authority, and it's a free speech issue?
Yes, it's a free speech issue. He expressed a private view to his personal associate with whom he had no professional dealings. He was recorded illegally and all action has been based on a single statement, given without context, and sourced from a legal adversary. You may agree or disagree with his private views about whom he prefers his girlfriend to mingle with, but it's quite drastic to forcibly divest him of his property because you don't like it. There's certainly nothing illegal about his opinion, and there's nothing wrong with him choosing to express it in the context in which he expressed it. The only thing objectively "wrong" about his opinion is that it is unpopular.
He wasn't brought down by a case that proved his practices were discriminatory. As far as I know no one has claimed that he was discriminatory in whatever hiring capacity he had with the Clippers (which for the record is probably not major). No one would know or care if the news media had something worthwhile to talk about instead of celebrity gossip. They can replay a sound bite over and over and turn a whole city against someone, someone who didn't do anything wrong other than possessing an opinion that's considered uncouth or presented as troublesome, and more than just "public outrage", they can then get his property taken against his will. The fact that this is possible, regardless of the content of the sound bite, should be very scary to anyone interested in maintaining free dialogue.
Free dialogue necessarily requires people to feel capable of expressing very unpopular things without major ramifications. Adverse governmental action is one element of this, but not the only element. I understand that the proceedings against Sterling are held in accordance with NBA bylaws to which Mr. Sterling supposedly agreed and that they're not an external legal proceeding (though I don't doubt there would be such a proceeding if the NBA didn't have provision to strip Sterling of ownership), but as stated, public hostility toward the principles of free speech, which is becoming quite massive, is nearly as problematic, especially when our media is so conglomerated.
Our modern communication media are inherently dangerous due to the extreme barrier to entry. This is changing partially with the internet, but for the time being and foreseeable future, it's still no competition with cable and establishment outlets. This is a major social and cultural threat and the FCC should do something about it.
>The only thing objectively "wrong" about his opinion is that it is unpopular.
Don't confuse disagreement with subjectivity. Racism is objectively harmful, and typically based on factual beliefs that are objectively false. Some people disagree with that, and it's their right to hold that opinion, but they're wrong.
The NBA's decision was probably driven largely by a fear of private boycotts. Do you think such boycotts are wrong, too? I.e., do you think Don Sterling's right to say racist things is more important than my right to choose not to do business with racists? Or do you think the boycott would've been ok, but the NBA should've ignored it?
Github was willing to go on the record at https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation-... stating " The investigation found Tom Preston-Werner in his capacity as GitHub’s CEO acted inappropriately, including confrontational conduct, disregard of workplace complaints, insensitivity to the impact of his spouse's presence in the workplace, and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office."
The difference is that when she did that, she wasn't getting sued. The point of the article is, when matters have reached the court of law, keep mum and let the lawyer do the talking.
Sure, but it's a tradeoff. The Preston-Werners have made legally threatening noises. Julie Ann Horvath's public comments have made an impressive difference in the court of public opinion, but if she gets sued in the court of actual court, they provide a lot of attack surface to a plaintiff's attorney.
I think it's great when people speak up about bad conditions: it's a big way that exploitative and oppressive behavior gets remedied. It seemed like Horvath knew the risks she was running, and I admire her bravery. But I wouldn't want people speaking up to be heedless about the risk they're taking.
Additionally, she's incurred significant personal liability in the process.
> She may have to deal with legal repercussions because of her actions on Twitter, but I can't help but think that nothing would have changed had she kept silent or quietly hired an employment lawyer after being forced out.
I can't help but think the court of public opinion has been used to bludgeon an opponent, not achieve justice.
The public absolutely lacks the facts necessary to judge the merits of the accusations, and the objectivity necessary won't be forthcoming through inciting angry internet mobs. This wasn't something as simple as Sterling's overt racism -- and even then, the public's ability to observe and act on his overt racism wasn't possible until it saw the cold light of day through objective and verifiable evidence.
The safest and likely most productive way for GitHub to be held to account, if GitHub as an organization needed to be held to account, was by providing a clear, objective statement of the allegations, vetted by her lawyer, and if possible, a tenacious lawsuit and refusal to settle for anything less than a public statement.