IBM was taken over by bean counters years ago. There were researchers and others that would literally skip being in or find a way to avoid bean counters when they walked through IBM Research Labs (like Almaden Research Center) years ago (heard from multiple people years back that were working on contracts/etc there - mainly academics).
Also, IBM has been extremely ageist in their "layoff" policies. They also have declined in quality by outsourcing to low cost/low skill areas.
There is a former column that was under multiple writers (same name), that did a great expose on IBM and age discrimination, but I don't want to give said column their due since the columnist had other issues.
If it's really their due, you should give it to them. This value system where you have to punish people if they don't have the "right" views needs to stop. Would you like someone to do that to you? If they did good work, it doesn't get infected by whatever "issues" they had.
Also, IBM has been extremely ageist in their "layoff" policies. They also have declined in quality by outsourcing to low cost/low skill areas.