Should people that donate to women-only colleges be fired? After all, that's supporting a type of segregation, and you didn't specify which type of segregation you're referring to. But to answer your point seriously (presuming that you're referring to Jim Crow era segregation), the people that genuinely support those kinds of heinous policies will almost certainly end up committing actual harassment and be fired with cause. I haven't met a single pro-segregationist that hadn't used slurs against Africans within seconds of making their views known. Granted, my sample size isn't particular big.
Banning certain political views almost always going to harm overall inclusion. According to some of the first results on Google 33% of Americans oppose gay marriage [1]. For comparison, the total African American population in the us is under 14% - less than half. Firing an employee for anti-gay marriage politics and then turning around and claiming it is attempting to be an inclusive company is hypocrisy.
Refraining from firing people regardless of their political views would not cause the world to fall apart. Government employers are legally obligated to tolerate employees political views by the 1st Amendment, and can only fire them for other just causes. Over 20 million people are employed by the Federal, State, and local governments in the US so respecting employers' politics clearly feasible.
> But, both of the examples you cite are cases where a person can cite reasonable reason for their support that aren't merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose.
The people that supported Proposition 8 can also cite what they believe are reasonable justifications for their support of Proposition 8. Sure, you may not agree that their justifications are reasonable. But that works both ways. Plenty of gun-rights supporters would claim that gun control is "merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose". So in your moral framework, a gun-rights supporting company would be equally justified in firing pro-gun control employees as Mozilla was in firing Eich, just as long as they consider gun control to be "merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose".
I really hope you realize that you're supporting the ability of a privileged elite (stockholders, CEOs, managers, etc.) to police their employees' political activity and coerce them into political submission through the threat of termination. Sure, bosses where I live (a liberal costal city) are usually liberal. But in much of the country, they're not.
I was clearly referring to Jim Crow era segregation. And, if your point is that all supporters of Jim Crow era segregation, which is super racist, will inevitably do more things that are super racist, why must we wait for them to do additional super racist things before judging them to be unfit to be a CEO of a large company? Similarly, once someone has demonstrated that they hold opinions contrary to the best interests of their employees, why must those employees wait until after they become CEO for them to demonstrate that fact yet again? If they have demonstrated that they are unfit, they are unfit, and they shouldn't have the position.
> Banning certain political views almost always going to harm overall inclusion.
Nothing was banned here. His position was that same-sex marriage should be illegal. Their position was that someone who supports same-sex marriage isn't fit to be a CEO of a large company, making decisions about a diverse workforce, based in a state where same-sex marriage is legal.
I'm also unclear about your definition of inclusion - is it just finding the largest number of people that happen to agree with each other?
> Refraining from firing people regardless of their political views would not cause the world to fall apart.
Its not about the world falling apart. Its about the right of employees to express their opinion of someones fitness to be their CEO. Which is totally the right of the employees of Mozilla to do.
> I really hope you realize that you're supporting the ability of a privileged elite (stockholders, CEOs, managers, etc.) to police their employees' political activity and coerce them into political submission through the threat of termination.
You are literally arguing that employees (ie: not the privileged elite) shouldn't speak out against the opinions of their CEO (ie: the privileged elite).
> And, if your point is that all supporters of Jim Crow era segregation, which is super racist, will inevitably do more things that are super racist, why must we wait for them to do additional super racist things before judging them to be unfit to be a CEO of a large company? Similarly, once someone has demonstrated that they hold opinions contrary to the best interests of their employees, why must those employees wait until after they become CEO for them to demonstrate that fact yet again? If they have demonstrated that they are unfit, they are unfit, and they shouldn't have the position.
Because there is no non-partisan determination of what is a 'super racist' or otherwise intolerable view, while there is a non-partisan (or at least fairly non-partisan) determination of what is harassment. Plenty of people I know think that any and all race-based affirmative action policies are 'super racist'. Would they justified in telling their direct reports that support affirmative hiring policies, or who donated against Proposition 209 (the proposition that banned race based affirmative action in California public universities) to quit? Sure, it may mean that occasionally someone with extreme political views get hired. But if they genuinely hold views that are truly extreme, they will inevitably end up committing harassment. Again, how for do you think that somebody who genuinely believes in Nazism or enslaving Africans is going to get without making an HR violation? They'd probably make an HR violation during the interview and not even get the job. And if they don't, then that's an indicator that the notion that their views were intolerably extreme wasn't correct.
> Nothing was banned here. His position was that same-sex marriage should be illegal. Their position was that someone who supports same-sex marriage isn't fit to be a CEO of a large company, making decisions about a diverse workforce, based in a state where same-sex marriage is legal.
You're missing the part where Eich's bosses tell him to quit. If managers are going around telling employees to quit when they support X, then the company is effectively banning or at least drastically reducing employee's ability to support X.
> I'm also unclear about your definition of inclusion - is it just finding the largest number of people that happen to agree with each other?
No - the whole point I've been arguing since the beginning is that attempting to cultivate political homogeneity is inevitably going to end up hurting inclusion.
> Its about the right of employees to express their opinion of someones fitness to be their CEO. Which is totally the right of the employees of Mozilla to do.
> You are literally arguing that employees (ie: not the privileged elite) shouldn't speak out against the opinions of their CEO (ie: the privileged elite).
Nowhere do I argue that employees shouldn't speak out against their CEO. Judging by statements made in your other comments, this seems to stem from the erroneous belief that Eich was entirely motivated to resign by Mozilla employees' displeasure to learn his political views. This is not the case. Eich's bosses (the Board) told him to resign. To make Eich's situation analogous to a normal employee, it'd be as if your manager scheduled a meeting with an employee and told them, "We noticed that you donated to ______. We do not tolerate this political view. You need to quit".
So, what, do we hire first grade teachers to be brain surgeons and wait to fire them until they kill a patient? Its preposterous to say that we can't look at past behavior and use it to judge someone's fitness for a job. He advocated against same-sex marriage in 2008. In 2014, same-sex marriage was legal in California. In 2014, he re-affirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage. Why on earth would his employees believe that he would be a good leader for them?
> You're missing the part where Eich's bosses tell him to quit.
If his bosses told him to quit, its because it was clear his employees didn't trust him. And they had every right not to trust him. And absolutely no reason to trust him. He hadn't screwed them in the 11 days he had been CEO, but had in the past and, by reaffirming his beliefs, made it very reasonable for the employees to believe he would in the future. What is the board supposed to do? Fire everyone but him?
> No - the whole point I've been arguing since the beginning is that attempting to cultivate political homogeneity is inevitably going to end up hurting inclusion.
Inclusion isn't about finding the worst examples of humanity and including them - its about including actually diverse people (which his employees actually were), trying to live their own lives, on their own terms, and not dictating to others how to live theirs. Its not about taking a single person, the CEO, and letting them say and do whatever they want. It is totally irrelevant what portion of the US still disagrees with same-sex marriage, unless you are going to argue thats OK. Its not. Its disgusting. Either tell me you believe thats OK or stop arguing that because X% of people believe in discrimination that somehow makes it legitimate. I don't care if you live in LA or in a single stoplight town in the middle of nowhere - discrimination is bullshit and cloaking it in the idea of everyone being allowed to have their own opinions only enables discrimination.
> Nowhere do I argue that employees shouldn't speak out against their CEO
So, what, the employees get to speak out as long as nothing comes of it? If something comes of it, thats the problem? What is the actual point of speaking out then?
Its been 4 years since he was sacked. Since then, there has not been a wave of pro-LGTB firings across the US. At least not, any more than were being fired before. Since then, there has been a greater recognition of LGTB rights, same-sex marriage is legal across the US, and opinions such as his have been further pushed into the trash can of history where they can live with other bullshit opinions. If employee outrage against a CEO that is clearly mis-aligned with their values, basic human values, is going to cause so many unintended consequences - where are they?
There are no moral absolutes. Life isn't math. But, his opinions, his positions, are abhorrent to any decent human being. You can try to cloak your argument in to a hand-wavy invocation of the idea that morality is changing and the norms of society aren't fixed - but try to defend what he actually advocated for. Is that ok? Tell me its ok to discriminate against your LGTB employees. Put that on record. Tell me that actively working against LGTB rights is ok and is something we should tolerate. Tell me that people that support LGBT rights in a state where same-sex marriage is legal should suck it up and support someone that doesn't believe in their rights. I don't want to hear about some hand-waving side effects - tell me about the actual issue here.
> So, what, do we hire first grade teachers to be brain surgeons and wait to fire them until they kill a patient? Its preposterous to say that we can't look at past behavior and use it to judge someone's fitness for a job.
This is a blatant straw man. Of course people skills and abilities must be considered. At all points in this discussion I have only focused on employee's political behavior. The notion that I have stated that candidates' skills should not be taken into account is a total fabrication on your part.
> Inclusion isn't about finding the worst examples of humanity and including them - its about including actually diverse people (which his employees actually were), trying to live their own lives, on their own terms, and not dictating to others how to live theirs. Its not about taking a single person, the CEO, and letting them say and do whatever they want. It is totally irrelevant what portion of the US still disagrees with same-sex marriage, unless you are going to argue thats OK. Its not. Its disgusting. Either tell me you believe thats OK or stop arguing that because X% of people believe in discrimination that somehow makes it legitimate. I don't care if you live in LA or in a single stoplight town in the middle of nowhere - discrimination is bullshit and cloaking it in the idea of everyone being allowed to have their own opinions only enables discrimination.
You're writing this with the erroneous notion that the people in charge are going to agree with your views. What about the people who have bosses that are part of the 1/3 of the population that doesn't believe in gay marriage? Are they supposed to just suck it up and get told to quit if they donate to pro-LGBT causes? You make broad statement like, "discrimination is bullshit and cloaking it in the idea of everyone being allowed to have their own opinions only enables discrimination" but don't consider the fact that lots of people consider things like affirmative action to be unjust discrimination. Heck, even here in California it was banned by popular vote. Does it follow that companies should grep for donors that were against Proposition 209 and tell them to quit? You claim that letting people have their own opinion enables discrimination. Sure, to a degree that's true but letting companies police their employees' opinions is an even bigger enabler of discrimination.
> What is the board supposed to do? Fire everyone but him?
This is another fallacious argument. The board doesn't need to choose between retaining Eich and firing everyone but him. They can fire nobody. Believe it or not, plenty of adults cooperate and work with people that have views different from theirs.
> So, what, the employees get to speak out as long as nothing comes of it? If something comes of it, thats the problem? What is the actual point of speaking out then?
I'm not sure why you're fixating on the employees. I did not mention them until you brought them up. My point has, since the beginning, been about the choice Eich's firing (or if you want to get pedantic, the asking of his resignation) from his superiors. As I have written before, the employees are equally entitled to make their opinions known.
> There are no moral absolutes. Life isn't math. But, his opinions, his positions, are abhorrent to any decent human being. You can try to cloak your argument in to a hand-wavy invocation of the idea that morality is changing and the norms of society aren't fixed - but try to defend what he actually advocated for. Is that ok? Tell me its ok to discriminate against your LGTB employees. Put that on record. Tell me that actively working against LGTB rights is ok and is something we should tolerate. Tell me that people that support LGBT rights in a state where same-sex marriage is legal should suck it up and support someone that doesn't believe in their rights. I don't want to hear about some hand-waving side effects - tell me about the actual issue here.
If your point of view is that the majority of Californians in 2008 we're "abhorrent to any decent human being" then your views are likely fringe. If you can't bring yourself to see what a decade ago was the majority of people, and what is 1/3 today, with even the most basic degree of respect then I don't think your have any business attempting to portray yourself as advocating tolerance. Dismissing half to a third of your countrymen's politics (assuming you're American) as "abhorrent to any decent human being" is the opposite of tolerance.
> "Yes" or "No" - LGTB people have rights?
Yes, LGBT people have rights. Refraining from firing Eich would not have been an infringement of those rights, though. Simply working with a co-worker who believes that civil liberties and rights should be regulated differently than you do is not a violation of those rights and liberties. No more than employing a pro-bussing employee is violating our 14th Amendment rights. No more than employing an employee that disagrees with Citizens Unitied is violating our right to free speech.
You seem to be operating under the noting that mere tolerance of a point of view is tantamount to an endorsement of that view. This kind of thinking is highly corrosive, and it is impossible to build an inclusive group composed of people that harbor this perspective. If a group if such people come together, the only way they would reach harmony is when they achieve political homogeneity. The notion that tolerance of a view is an endorsement of that view is implicitly a demand to be intolerant towards views one disagrees with. It is sobering to meet someone on HN that follows this line of thought.
Banning certain political views almost always going to harm overall inclusion. According to some of the first results on Google 33% of Americans oppose gay marriage [1]. For comparison, the total African American population in the us is under 14% - less than half. Firing an employee for anti-gay marriage politics and then turning around and claiming it is attempting to be an inclusive company is hypocrisy.
Refraining from firing people regardless of their political views would not cause the world to fall apart. Government employers are legally obligated to tolerate employees political views by the 1st Amendment, and can only fire them for other just causes. Over 20 million people are employed by the Federal, State, and local governments in the US so respecting employers' politics clearly feasible.
> But, both of the examples you cite are cases where a person can cite reasonable reason for their support that aren't merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose.
The people that supported Proposition 8 can also cite what they believe are reasonable justifications for their support of Proposition 8. Sure, you may not agree that their justifications are reasonable. But that works both ways. Plenty of gun-rights supporters would claim that gun control is "merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose". So in your moral framework, a gun-rights supporting company would be equally justified in firing pro-gun control employees as Mozilla was in firing Eich, just as long as they consider gun control to be "merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose".
I really hope you realize that you're supporting the ability of a privileged elite (stockholders, CEOs, managers, etc.) to police their employees' political activity and coerce them into political submission through the threat of termination. Sure, bosses where I live (a liberal costal city) are usually liberal. But in much of the country, they're not.
1. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/record-percentage-am...