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GitHub Inc. apologized yesterday for firing a Jewish official who asked colleagues to “stay safe” and avoid “Nazis” on the day that a crowd incited by President Trump invaded the United States Capitol. GitHub said it “reversed the decision” and indicated that it is trying to hire the employee back.
“Stay safe, bro, the Nazis are close by,” wrote the official, whose identity was not revealed publicly, in an internal Slack chat room on January 6. He was fired two days later, after a “co-worker quickly criticized the employee for using divisive rhetoric,” Business Insider reported last week.
“I didn’t know that, as a Jew, it would be so polarizing to say that word,” wrote the former employee in a Slack group for Jewish employees shortly “before his corporate accounts were disabled,” wrote the Business Insider. The former employee “is Jewish and had a family who died in the Holocaust,” the article said.
The former employee told Business Insider that he sent the message on Slack because “he was afraid of the people who were there [in DC]. “He also said that GitHub’s human resources cited unspecified” patterns of behavior “when firing him and that he was looking for more details on the reason for his dismissal.
About 200 employees signed an internal letter protesting the resignation, Business Insider wrote. GitHub officials have also repeatedly “said ‘Nazi’ in Slack regarding US Capitol rioters, to protest what is being treated unfairly,” according to The Verge.
GitHub Excuses
GitHub, which belongs to Microsoft, announced yesterday that it “reversed the decision to separate from the employee and is communicating with his representative”. GitHub said the reversal came after it hired “an outside investigator to conduct an independent investigation”. This “investigation revealed significant errors of judgment and procedure” and the company’s head of human resources “took personal responsibility and resigned from GitHub,” wrote GitHub COO Erica Brescia. (TechCrunch identified this HR executive as Gia Colosi.)
“We want to say to the employee publicly: we sincerely apologize,” wrote Brescia.
We asked GitHub today if he managed to hire the dismissed employee back and / or come to terms with him and will update this article if we have an answer.
GitHub also condemned the crowd, saying, “It was terrible last week to watch a violent crowd, including Nazis and white supremacists, attack the United States Capitol.” Although GitHub apologized for firing the employee, the company also said employees should be “respectful” and “professional” when discussing the subject and similar ones internally.
“Employees are free to express concerns about Nazis, anti-Semitism, white supremacy or any other form of discrimination or harassment in internal discussions,” said GitHub. “We expect all employees to be respectful, professional and follow GitHub’s policies on discrimination and harassment.”
The dismissed employee spoke to TechCrunch last week, before GitHub announced its decision to reverse the dismissal. The man “says he is currently seeking a lawyer to ensure that his family is protected, as well as to find out if he can receive compensation or some other form of reconciliation” and that he “is waiting to become involved with the company until he has legal representation in place, “wrote TechCrunch.
The dismissed official said he was also threatened with resignation in October, when he complained about the lack of diversity in GitHub’s leadership. “I feel that this could be an opportunity for GitHub to actually purge and say, ‘Do we want white supremacy in this company and how are we going to put black leaders in executive management?” he told TechCrunch.