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Business Insider reported on Tuesday that a GitHub employee was fired after he mentioned on Slack that there were Nazis in Washington, D.C. on the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol building. His coworkers rallied to his defense and asked the Microsoft-owned company to reinstate him. The decision was changed after GitHub issued an apology on Sunday.
In the statement, GitHub CEO Nat Friedman condemned the attack on the Capitol, said that there were “Nazis and white supremacists” among the rebels, and added that employees are “free to talk about Nazis, anti-Semitism, white supremacy, or any other form of discrimination or harassment in internal discussions.”
According to a post on Sunday, GitHub’s head of human resources quit on Saturday. The company’s statement also said that the former executive takes personal responsibility for the decision to fire the employee who raised concerns about “Nazis” in D.C.
I didn’t know that, as a Jew, saying this word would be so divisive,” the unnamed worker told other Jewish workers in a Slack message shown to Business Insider during a disciplinary meeting.
Fellow People who worked at GitHub spoke up for the fired person. Around 200 employees signed an open letter to management that questioned the reasons for the firing and asked GitHub to take a stand against anti-Semitism and white supremacy.
In 2019, about 150 GitHub employees signed an open letter asking the company to stop working with the hated Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE has been responsible for the wrongfully and illegally detaining, harassing, assaulting, and killing of countless people in the United States.
ICE’s contract with GitHub has been honored.
In a final Slack message to coworkers, the fired employee said, “The tech industry can be very closed off.” “People may be able to see that white supremacy is a problem because of this. It’s not just about culture. It could be a matter of structure.”
Other tech companies, like Twitter and Facebook, have taken a stand against the recent actions of far-right extremist supporters of Donald Trump and followers of QAnon by banning people from their platforms, including the president. GitHub’s initial response to its employee’s comments was a notable change from this. The subsequent retraction of the termination and condemnation of the attack on the Capitol is a step in the right direction, but the fact that it had to be fixed at all is at the very least troubling.
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