Microsoft-owned GitHub is facing employee backlash after it reportedly terminated a Jewish worker for warning in a corporate Slack channel that there were “nazis” present at the U.S. Capitol riot.
As armed pro-Trump insurrectionists swarmed the Capitol on January 6 — at least one of whom was literally wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase “Camp Auschwitz” — the former employee in question reportedly wrote in a public Slack channel, “Stay safe homies, Nazis are about,” alongside a frowny-face emoji.
According to Business Insider, the terminated employee, who wished to remain anonymous, is Jewish himself, and has several family members who died in the Holocaust.
The comment reportedly ignited an internal debate over “divisive” language used in a corporate Slack channel, and prompted a near-immediate slap on the wrist by an HR rep for using the word “Nazi” in the workplace. Two days later, the employee was terminated, with human resources citing unspecified “patterns of behaviour” in its justification of the firing.
“I did not know that, as a Jew, it would be so polarising to say this word,” the former employee wrote in a Slack group for Jewish employees shortly before he was terminated, according to Insider.
Read the article by Brianna Provenzano on Gizmodo.