Some Mozilla Employees Demand New CEO Step Down

_xeno_ (155264) writes "Mozilla recently named a new CEO, Brendan Eich, and as commentators in that article noted, there could be some backlash over his private contributions to political campaigns. Well, it turns out that they were correct, and despite a statement from Brendan Eich pledging to continue Mozilla's inclusiveness, some Mozilla employees are calling for him to step down. Should private beliefs be enough to prevent someone from heading a project they helped found?"

Comments

No

[HornWumpus]

The employees should make sure the door doesn't hit them on the ass on their way out. Modern day McCarthy's.

Re:No

[msauve]

If employees can justify asking the boss to leave because of his personal beliefs, then they should respect the opposite and support the boss when he similarly asks them to leave for theirs.

Re:No

[almitydave]

Well, employment law prevents discriminatory hiring/firing practices (based on religious and many other factors), and if the guy is qualified for the role, his beliefs and political advocacy are irrelevant, as are those of the employees who disagree with those beliefs. People who preach tolerance need to be tolerant, and if he practices what he preaches in his linked blog post, there shouldn't be a problem.

We've had blacklisting based on political associations before, and I thought we all agreed it's a bad thing?

Re:No

[unixisc]

It is always conditionally agreed. People agree that blacklisting based on political associations is a bad thing, except when it comes to blacklisting people that they disagree with

Re:No

[machineghost]

We've had blacklisting based on political associations before, and I thought we all agreed it's a bad thing?

Yeah, we all agreed it's bad. Like remember when the world blacklisted apartheid South Africa and its supporters? That was terrible wasn't it?

Re:No

[hubie]

Just like Jon Stewart said about entitlements (in context of the Megyn Kelly maternity leave comments):

Here's the thing about entitlements. They're really only entitlements when they're something other people want. When it's something you want, they're a hallmark of a civilized society, the foundation of a great people. I just had a baby and found out maternity leave strengthens society. But since I still have a job, unemployment benefits are clearly socialism.

Re:No

[amiga3D]

That's right, some issues are more equal than others.

Re:No

[msauve]

"People agree that blacklisting based on political associations is a bad thing, except when it comes to blacklisting people that they disagree with"

Exactly. McAvoy exhibits the highest level of hypocrisy:

McAvoy added that he feels fortunate to work at a company like Mozilla, "where I can say that without fear of retribution."

...plainly admitting that he's glad they respect his right to hold and voice his own beliefs, while simultaneously encouraging them to not respect those he doesn't agree with (which, BTW, were in the majority).

Re:No

[andymadigan]

Mozilla can absolutely fire them, but how much talent are they willing to shed so that this guy can be CEO? In Silicon Valley, a lot of these people can probably walk across the street and get a new job, even if their explicit reason for leaving the last one was that the new CEO supported Prop 8. Mozilla's board has got to be thinking about how much damage could be done before this guy has really even started.

Re:No

[lgw]

Well, employment law prevents discriminatory hiring/firing practices (based on religious and many other factors), and if the guy is qualified for the role, his beliefs and political advocacy are irrelevant, as are those of the employees who disagree with those beliefs. People who preach tolerance need to be tolerant, and if he practices what he preaches in his linked blog post, there shouldn't be a problem.

We've had blacklisting based on political associations before, and I thought we all agreed it's a bad thing?

Being conservative is not a protected class. It's not that rare at certain kinds of companies for people to be shown the door if they're "outed" as a conservative (possibly the most famous being the editor of Playgirl).

For the most part, when people preach "tolerance" they mean "believe everything on my checklist exactly like I do without question", as the word "tolerance" is just a tribal identification signal, not an actual belief. That's really common these days, and I'm really tired of being told I'm a bigot for advocating acceptance of many cultural views!

Re:No

[AlphaWolf_HK]

The thing is, they're in a bit of a sticky situation.

- If Mozilla lets him go, they'll get backlash from libertarians, conservatives, and tea party types. The civil libertarians aren't (typically) anti-gay, but they generally don't respond well to calls for boycotts over something somebody said as their affinity for freedom of expression takes precedence.
- If Mozilla keeps him, they'll get backlash from the gay lobby (for lack of a better term.)

Neither is a particularly good thing to have, though (and here's where the irony is) staying their existing course would be safest *if* the gay lobby does an all out assault on this one. Recall chic-fil-a who actually saw record revenues from backlash during that incident. Similar things have also happened to other businesses who have snubbed their nose at the gay lobby; the only ones that don't continue are the ones that succumb to e.g. the death threats. This sort of plays into the theory of there being no such thing as bad publicity, which tends to be true in most cases.

Ironically, if the gay lobby just does a quiet boycott (i.e. they switch browsers without any fanfare) then they might actually succeed.

As for me, I really like the Firefox browser, I feel it is a lot more flexible, even if a tad buggy compared to chrome, and IE is a joke. One thing's for sure in any case: It's nice having a choice between two really good browsers. I feel the same way about Linux Mint, by the way, whose founder made a bunch of anti-semitic remarks (I myself believe Israel is in the right on that one.) I also loved the movie Ender's Game; really well done, and it didn't contain any gay related themes in it, either for or against.

Re:No

[TsuruchiBrian]

The fact that you think think this is a complex issue doesn't make it complex.

Re:No

[TsuruchiBrian]

What part of this is complex? What are the nuances of prop 8? Why might a reasonable person without retarded religious baggage support discriminating against people based on their sexuality?

Please enlighten me.

No....

[the eric conspiracy]

Not sure about private beliefs being enough reason but that whole Javascript thing?

Hell YES.

That has inflicted more pain on the web than anything else INCLUDING the BLINK tag!

Re:No....

[Lazere]

Woah there sparky. We all know Javascript is bad, but comparing it to the blink tag? That's just offensive.

Tarzan need antecedent

[Millennium]

What do you mean by "that"? Whose comments are you talking about?

Re:Tarzan need antecedent

[Mitchell314]

When he said Pluto wasn't a real planet. Some countries put you to death for that shit.

Re:Tarzan need antecedent

[pixelpusher220]

Pretty sure AC means the Tweets from the rank and file saying the new boss should to step down. It's fair to expect some blowback for that, but the new boss also needs to understand if he's toxic to the people who will be making him succeed or fail as well.

Re:Tarzan need antecedent

[epyT-R]

or maybe those people need to grow spines and realize that work is not the same thing as a party, where they get to choose who they associate with. As long as he treats them no differently than other employees, the problem lies squarely with the complainers.

Re:Tarzan need antecedent

[epyT-R]

Take what shit? He hasn't mistreated them. He hasn't even had the opportunity to do so yet. I guarantee that there are people you are working with right now that have made personal decisions that you would not agree with. That's not oppression.

Re:Tarzan need antecedent

[shutdown -p now]

In US, a CEO being publicly atheist will very likely affect the public perception of the business negatively. Does that make it a valid concern? Should it be? I don't think so. As a CEO, he is hired to do a specific job, and his private political views have nothing to do with that job. It would be a different matter if he was giving public speeches or otherwise trying to associate his name with the anti-gay-marriage cause, but as it is, all that is there is a donation that is only public because the law requires it to be, and he didn't advertise it in any way. This makes it a very different situation from, say, Orson Scott Card.

Re:Tarzan need antecedent

[Jane Q. Public]

This.

Above all, I think they need to remember they are employees.

Eich's beliefs mean nothing, as long as he doesn't practice them at work. Just as the employee's sexual orientation means nothing, as long as he doesn't practice it at work.

A lot of people today need to pull their noses out of everybody else's asses, and everybody else's business, and start living their own lives for a change.

And yes, if an employee of mine made public comments about not wanting me as CEO because of my politics, I would show him the door in an instant. He could take his stuff home with him right then, and not come back... just wait to get his final paycheck in the mail.

That's not discrimination... that's just low tolerance for bullshit. It has nothing to do with the employee's own politics. Only with the fact that he was objecting -- publicly -- ABOUT his boss's politics, whatever they happen to be.

First amendment only applies to our friends

[Just Some Guy]

First, I'm absolutely 100% against Prop 8. I'm not gay; I just don't think I should have a say in the relationship between two consenting adults.

That said, I'm absolutely 100% for Eich's right to have an opinion I disagree with. If he were acting on his opinion in an official capacity, sure, release the dogs of PR war. But if he maintains a nondiscriminatory policy, even if he may personally not like it, then that's about all you have the right to ask of him.

Remember, sometime it'll be our turn to have an unpopular opinion. Would it be OK for our companies to fire us for them, even if we don't bring them into our workplaces? That's not a society I'd like to live in.

Re:First amendment only applies to our friends

[amicusNYCL]

No one is threatening to fire Eich. The employees disagree with his position and are asking him to step down. It is their right to do so. It is his right to choose not to do so. If he doesn't, it is their right to quit. No one's rights are being infringed upon in this particular situation. Employees disagree with his views towards gay marriage, and so they don't want to work for him. That sounds reasonable to me.

Re:First amendment only applies to our friends

[Just Some Guy]

I agree. I was answering the question in the summary, "should private beliefs be enough to prevent someone from heading a project they helped found?"

Of course not. Unless those beliefs become workplace actions, they should not affect someone's employment.

Re:First amendment only applies to our friends

[amicusNYCL]

Somehow... birth control (which was already widely available prior to Obamacare) is now a civil right to receive for free and from your employer.

First, there has been no decision on that case, only arguments. As to whether contraception is a civil rights issue, it sounds like that depends which gender you are. The female justices supported the right of employees to receive contraception through insurance, while the male justices were more skeptical.

Don't forget, just this week we had a case before the Supreme Court over the question over whether the government has the authority to compel private individuals to violate their religious beliefs and directly pay for medications which in their views (rightly or wrongly) cause abortions.

Based on how you phrased that, it is obvious where your own personal bias lies. So, allow me to point out that no, the government is not currently compelling employers to pay for medication. The corporation has the choice to not provide insurance for their employees, and instead pay the fine. The justices noted that this is their choice, and that in fact the fine is less than the cost of insurance.

You've called them "private individuals", but that is not correct. The owners of the company have no requirement to provide insurance. The actual company as a legal entity does. One of the justices rightly asked the question of how the religion of a company can be determined.

They also pointed to the case of an Amish farmer suing the government because he did not want to pay social security taxes for his employees, because paying taxes violated his religious beliefs. He did not win that case. Religious beliefs do not trump everything else. I can start a religion that believes that black people should be eradicated from the planet, but that does not give me the right to murder people. A person who owns a corporation is free to believe that contraception is a sin, but that does not make them exempt from providing insurance to their employees or paying a fine. That's the way it is. If they have a problem with that, then there are several countries where religion and law are the same, they can move there. In my country, religion is not law.

Re:First amendment only applies to our friends

[sjames]

You are speaking of a mere difference of opinion. If the boss actively campaigned to strip Republicans of their rights, then yes, it would be quite similar.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are so opposed to this guy's viewpoints that you can't stand to work in the same organization with him, the problem's yours, not his. He's not the one demanding you resign because he doesn't agree with yoru views, you are.

You intolerant clod.

The double standard at work

[DaHat]

Prop 8 has been a contentious issue for many, and is now largely resolved... yet those who ultimately won are still not happy.

It is interesting to see how those who supported it (even through a simple donation) are now targets for personal and professional attacks such as this... yet this kind of intolerance for the views of other peoples opinions & donations, does seem to be rather unidirectional, but then that is the typical 'tolerance' that the left in this country believes in.

Re:The double standard at work

[amicusNYCL]

The reason why the attacks are unidirectional is because gay marriage, or the larger issue of gay rights, is a human rights issue. All you need to do is look back across history to figure out if the side that protects, or the side that attacks, human rights is the "right" side. It's pretty obvious. In the future, people opposed to gay rights today are going to be seen similarly to those who fought against civil rights in the 60s. 2 men or 2 women getting married has the same impact on your life as a black man marrying a white woman. There is no reason to not allow that. The only justification people have for not supporting gay rights is because of their own prejudice.

Re:The double standard at work

[Archangel Michael]

Gay marriage isn't about rights, it is about benefits granted by government. Nothing more, nothing less.

Most gay people oppose Polygamy, even though that is exactly the same issue, government deciding who can and who can't be "married" (Defining Marriage). Why do they oppose polygamy (polyandry, other plural marriages)? Historically, there is much more evidence of polygamy and even polyandry being "legal" forms of marriage than homosexual marriages.

Here is my view, as a Libertarian: Government has no right to define what is or what isn't marriage. Period. Individuals are the only people with rights, therefore, marriage is simply a contract between two people. And at that point, it is no longer something that government has a say in. The opponents of gay marriage, made the mistake all along of suggesting that it was a right for only Heterosexual people. It isn't a right, it is a contract, and a sacred one at that (religious). If the Muslims and Mormons want to define marriage to have their polygamy, then that is who defines marriage for them.

Re:It wasn't just private opinion.

[cold fjord]

That conduct was not connected to his job. But if you want to start penalizing private political activity not connected to the job, that can cut the other way too. ACLU members? Fired. GLAAD members? Fired. Get the drift? Are you sure you want to go there?

Remember when Eich became the CEO of Mozilla?

[thevirtualcat]

I do. It was a pivotal day in the history of the organization.

His first action as the CEO was to immediately fire anyone who was in any way, shape or form connected to the GBLT community and issue a public statement that says "Fags should use Chrome or IE. Google and Microsoft like you perverts for some reason, but we don't want any of that here." Within a week, he had diverted a substantial portions of Mozilla's revenue to anti-GBLT orgnizations and publicly backed candidates who actively oppose gay rights. There were unsubtantiated rumors he would be working to remove code contributed by GBLT developers from Firefox, but those turned out to be just rumors.

Oh wait, no. That didn't happen.

He gave some money to a cause he supports a few years ago that a lot of people disagree with (including me) and didn't apologize for it.

But I can see how it's easy to get those two things confused.

Tolerance and reason at it's finest

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey, there is this guy, he has been around for pretty much forever, contributed more than half the goddamn planet, but he donated for Prop 8, what was outlawed anyway, he must be the spawn of Satan! He must step back, stop existing, or we boycott our single biggest hope for a better web and anyone who works there and isn't Eric!"
Those Ars commenters are batsh*t insane, mixing personal feelings and professional stuff. Also, gotta love the comments where he is compared to Hitler or the KKK. It isn't even a different different order of magnitude anymore...

Re:It wasn't just private opinion.

[HornWumpus]

It is related to their jobs. As movie directors and writers they are credited by name. They are the public face of MGM. Their behavior reflects on the studio and it is reasonable to blacklist communists.

And, for the counterpoints

[chefmonkey]

A homosexual Mozilla employee's take on the topic: http://subfictional.com/2014/0...
A statement from Mitch Baker, Mozilla chairperson: https://blog.lizardwrangler.co...
A statement from Brendan himself: https://brendaneich.com/2014/0...
An official Mozilla statement on its policy regarding employee and contributor diversity: https://blog.mozilla.org/press...

Re:It wasn't just private opinion.

[christianT]

A company's products are the public face of a company, not the CEO. Until this whole debacle I hadn't a clue who the CEO of Mozilla is or ever has been. What I knew of Mozilla was that they made a pretty darn good web browser among other things. The CEO is there to make sure they keep making a good browser and that the employees are taken care of. If the browser goes to crap or the employees are being mistreated, then he should be ousted.

Re:It wasn't just private opinion.

[Archangel Michael]

How is his stance related to the job, other than it is unpopular?

If that is all that you care about (popular opinions of the left) , which seems to the point, then it WILL cut both ways. This is the tyranny that the left opposes except when it benefits them. Think about it this way, what if the NRA said that the CEO of Startbucks should be fired for his comments about people with guns (CC permits) not being welcomed at Starbucks? I mean, THAT does affect Starbucks, but is also SIMPLY a political belief, having nothing to do with coffee and crumpets.

The left LOVES to mix their business with political beliefs. Had Right Wingers known that they support suppression of speech, I'm sure that would have done so earlier.

Libertarians don't give a shit as long as people get the job they were hired to do, done.

Social 'Justice'

[epyT-R]

So basically, because this guy doesn't enthusiastically cheer for and support gays at every opportunity, he deserves the boot? Doesn't he have a right to express and support his values, too? As an atheist, I think religion is nuts, but the same rights that allow these gay employees to voice their displeasure in the first place, without being booted themselves, should protect him as well. There is no 'controversy' here.

Marriage, religion, and gay rights should have nothing to do with running a software company, which is what he was hired to do. Let him do it. If he sucks at it, then fire him. If he does a good job, then reward him. Part of being an employee is that sometimes you have to work with people you don't like, and this applies equally to him as well as to these gay employees. Apparently, these professional victims think that life lesson should not apply to them, only to their political enemies. Their crocodile tears on twitter do not impress, either, as they are acting like he victimized them just by taking the job at Mozilla. That's bullshit.

Workplaces should be amoral, apolitical places. You were hired to do a job, so was he. Do your jobs well and there'll be no time for stupid political wrangling from any side.

Re:Social 'Justice'

[devent]

> So basically, because this guy doesnt enthusiastically cheer for and support gays at every opportunity, he deserves the boot?

No, because he donated to a law that would remove or prohibit benefits, right and privileges to couples only because they were born homosexual. He actively wants to discriminate a minority because of his personal believes.

> Their crocodile tears on twitter do not impress, either, as they are acting like he victimized them just by taking the job at Mozilla. Thats bullshit.

No, Mozilla employees just don't want to see Mozilla, a brand that they helped to create, be associated with someone who actively wants to discriminate a minority. They are worried that a bigot like Brendan Eich is associated with Mozilla.

Re:I'd rather not be fired for my beliefs

[cbhacking]

"Asked to step down" != "fired". He was promoted from inside the company, and they feel that he shouldn't have been.

Oh, and if you don't want your political contributions to become a big deal in the workplace, I have a couple recommendations:
1) Don't become a CEO. The CEO represents the company. The policies of a new CEO are assumed, with reason, to be the intended policies of the company. People care about that stuff, in ways that they're never going to care about one AC on Slashdot.
2) Don't do it publicly! A few thousand dollars quietly donated to one cause or another isn't generally going to alter anybody's opinion of you, because they won't know. A few thousand dollars publicly and visibly donated to a very controversial, discriminatory cause? Well, that's going to grab some attention. It still won't make headlines though, unless people have reason to believe you're in a position to discriminate against others going forward. See #1...

Re: That logic totally holds up

[Anonymous Coward]

And the responsibilities of a CEO mean they can't have personal beliefs that are contrary to those of some of the employees?

If I'm an atheist and I run a Christian college, should the employees be able to boycott me? If I'm a CEO and I voted and supported communist candidates that the majority of my employees don't approve, should I be forced to step down?

As a CEO, can I not have any beliefs?

Would we...

[WillyWanker]

...even be having this conversation if he donated money to the KKK?

Re:Would we...

[gig]

If he was a KKK member, Mozilla would likely not have made him CEO. That is the discrepancy here. That is the mistake that Mozilla is being called out on.

If the KKK in California had put up a proposition to ban so-called* interracial marriage and Brendan Eich gave thousands of dollars to it, and then it passed because of money that flooded in from the slave states, then Mozilla would not have made him CEO. Here, we have a situation that is even worse than that, because years later after much public suffering, after Prop 8 was struck down as unconstitutional, Brendan Eich *still* supports it. He makes no apologies for his support of the KKK or the actions he took to try and make some people less equal than others.

So Mozilla is saying, some kinds of hatred are just OK with us. We give him a pass for his anti-homo actions. Mozilla says, “won't everybody please respect Brendan Eich's right to put triangles on the arms of all homos and single them out for special second-class citizen treatment?” No, he doesn't have a right to do that. And he doesn't have a right to be respected by the people he victimized with his actions. Mozilla gains Eich as CEO and loses a large part of its community in return. Action gets reaction.

(* I say so-called interracial marriage because there is only one race — human race — and therefore all marriage is humanracial marriage. In related news: the earth is round, evolution can be seen under a microscope, environmental pollution damages your health, and it is the 21st century.)

Re:Instantly fired.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla is already highly political. They view their product as a tool to help further their goals of increased freedom.

Like freedom of speech? Freedom of conscience? The freedom to express your personal views? That kind of freedom?

Who do these complainers think they are; declaring that someone should lose their job, just because they have different beliefs? It's a good thing that they're not the ones in charge, because that kind of attitude is exactly what can lose you your job - and land you in court.

This is not about “private beliefs” at

[gig]

this is about PUBLIC ACTIONS. Nobody is responsible for Brendan Eich's public actions except Brendan Eich. He reaps what he sowed just like we all do.

Brendan Eich publicly funded a political campaign to destroy the marriages and families of about 25% of his fellow Californians. Some of whom work for Mozilla, and some of whom partner with Mozilla. Private beliefs are something that is private, inside your own head. Publicly funding the Prop 8 campaign is public, and takes place well outside of Brendan Eich's own head.

Had Brendan Eich kept his hatred and bigotry inside his own head he would be OK right now. There are CEO's who are racist bigots and they keep it to themselves. What Brendan Eich did by comparison was sign up for the KKK and donate thousands of dollars to *successfully* reimplementing racial segregation in California, by aligning himself with money and groups that came mostly from outside California. Because of the actions of Brendan Eich and other bigots like him, millions of Californians were told by their government to start sitting at the back of the bus, and this went on for years while the courts laboriously went through everything and said, yes, we already knew that creating second-class citizens was wrong. No, you don't have the right to make them into second-class citizens.

Married couples were told that their marriages were invalid. People died while their marriages were invalidated, and their partners got kicked out of the home they had lived in for years because the house was taxed as a gift between two platonic friends.

Me, I am not going to be involved in anything Mozilla-related while this bigot fuck is CEO. I took Firefox out of my development targets. Not because of Brendan Eich's “beliefs” but because of his actions.