GitHub, a technology firm owned by Microsoft, apologized on Sunday for what its COO, Erica Brescia, called “significant errors in judgment” following outrage that it had fired an employee, who is Jewish, for warning that “Nazis” were among the pro-Donald Trump mob who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January.
“In light of these findings, we immediately reversed the decision to separate with the employee and are in communication with his representative,” Brescia wrote in a blogpost. “To the employee, we wish to say publicly: we sincerely apologize.”
According to Insider, which first reported the firing, the tech firm terminated the employee two days after he predicted the insurrection’s potential Nazi links in a company chat room. The message allegedly cautioned “stay safe homies, Nazis are about”.
The firing garnered immediate outcry among staff. In response, GitHub hired an outside firm to investigate. The findings, released on Friday, revealed the procedural errors resulting in the tech company offering the employee his job back, and its head of human resources stepping down on Saturday.
Employees later circulated a letter demanding that the company answer questions about the worker’s termination, while also calling on them to denounce white supremacy.
In Sunday’s blogpost, GitHub noted that the executive acknowledged that “employees are free to express concerns about Nazis, antisemitism, white supremacy or any other form of discrimination or harassment” in an earlier statement shared with employees.
“It was appalling last week to watch a violent mob, including Nazis and white supremacists, attack the US Capitol,” the post noted the company’s CEO, Nat Friedman, had said. “That these hateful ideologies were able to reach the sacred seat of our democratic republic in 2021 is sickening.”
