GitHub Fired a Jewish Employee For Warning That 'Nazis' Were Among the US Capitol Rioters
Microsoft-owned GitHub is facing an employee backlash after it reportedly terminated a Jewish worker for warning in a corporate Slack channel that there were “nazis” present at the U.S. Capitol riot.
gizmodo.com
As armed pro-Trump insurrectionists swarmed the Capitol on January 6 — at least one of whom was literally wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase "Camp Auschwitz" — the former employee in question reportedly wrote in a public Slack channel, "Stay safe homies, Nazis are about," alongside a frowny-face emoji.
According to Business Insider, the terminated employee, who wished to remain anonymous, is Jewish himself, and has several family members who died in the Holocaust.
The comment reportedly ignited an internal debate over "divisive" language used in a corporate Slack channel, and prompted a near-immediate slap on the wrist by an HR rep for using the word "Nazi" in the workplace. Two days later, the employee was terminated, with human resources citing unspecified "patterns of behavior" in its justification of the firing.
The termination has prompted some 200 of GitHub's nearly 1700 employees to sign on to an open letter demanding answers from management about why the employee was fired. In the letter, GitHub employees say that they no longer feel that the company provides a safe work environment, and ask the company to take a firmer stand against anti-Semitism and white supremacy.