
Julie Ann Horvath on GitHub Investigation - aaronbrethorst
http://recode.net/2014/04/21/julie-ann-horvath-on-github-investigation-how-do-you-sleep-at-night/
======
greenyoda
_" Bullying someone into quitting: Illegal."_

Bullying someone into quitting is legal (at least under federal law)[1],
_unless_ you discriminated against them based on their membership in a
protected class (e.g., sex, religion, etc.), which is fairly hard to prove if
it only happened to a single individual. Unfortunately, people get bullied at
work all the time, and some of them quit because of it.

 _" Asking an employee to relay private conversations between her and her
partner: Illegal."_

Distasteful, but again, not illegal. (What law would it violate?)

Also, if Ms. Horvath had any grounds for suing GitHub, she would have surely
talked to a lawyer by now, and the very first thing the lawyer would have told
her is to shut up and not make any public statements about the case. These
quotes lead me to believe that she has no case, except perhaps in the court of
public opinion.

[1] _" Subsequently, to be illegal under one of the laws in the eyes of the
courts, a hostile work environment typically must be caused by discriminatory
workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, national origin,
disability, genetics, age or sex; or it must be caused by retaliation in
violation of a discrimination law."_
[http://employeeissues.com/hostile_work_environment.htm](http://employeeissues.com/hostile_work_environment.htm)

------
ztratar
I don't know how to feel about this.

I value justice to an incredible degree, but when she talks about the
injustice of "firing someone because they disagree with you"... that's
completely backwards. If you keep disagreeing with leadership, then you're at
the wrong company.

Glad she at least said leaving Github was a good thing. She should put this
behind her and move forwards.

~~~
gojomo
There is an interesting juxtaposition when combining Horvath's (1) and (7):
"Bullying someone into… the best decision of my life: …Illegal."

