After only days on the job, the Mozilla CEO resigned over an employee revolt centering on his contributions to the 2008 campaign to pass Proposition 8, California’s ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriages. Pressure for him to resign escalated as many believed his ability to lead the company was seriously damaged by his Prop 8 support. (Re/code, April 3, 2014, by Kara Swisher)
Brendan Eich’s departure raises questions about his free speech rights and diverse political opinions in the workplace. One business executive tweeted, “Eric Schmidt [Google executive chairman] helps Obama, some of whose policies are anathema to conservatives. Do we really want such a monoculture?” (CNET, April 3, 2014, by Stephen Shankland)
Mark Joseph Stern, Slate, April 4, 2014, argues that since Mozilla is a private company, an employee does not enjoy the same First Amendment protections and that trustees also have the right to condemn conduct contrary to the best interests of the company.
Writing in The Atlantic, April 4, 2014, Conor Friedersdorf says, “Calls for his (Eich’s)ouster were premised on the notion that all support for Proposition 8 was hateful, and that a CEO should be judged not just by his or her conduct in the professional realm, but also by political causes he or she supports as a private citizen. If that attitude spreads, it will damage our society. . . . It isn’t difficult to see the wisdom in inculcating the norm that the political and the professional are separate realms, for following it makes so many people and institutions better off in a diverse, pluralistic society. The contrary approach would certainly have a chilling effect on political speech and civic participation, as does Mozilla’s behavior toward Eich. . . .”
One Comment
Luckily for Eich, he has no intellectual property hurdles in front of him to duplicate his employer’s products and then to build a new team of those who would prefer a different type of organization to build their browser.
OTOH, the truth is that 6 years ag, he gave money to a campaign, whose only purpose was to strip all Californians of an existing right, one that had already been affirmed by the State’s highest Court.
As the subsequent constitutionality trial showed, there was no reason for this that could be shown to be Constitutional. The Supreme Court found no reason to take up the case, so solid was the reasoning by the lower Courts.
And so, as of summer 2013, nearly one year before Eich’s appointment as CEO, the marriage rights of all Californians were restored.
Mr. Eich is a smart man. He has had ample time to reconsider his views regarding the removal of people’s rights, and to reconsider them as many millions of Californians and 10’s of millions of other US citizens have already done in the last 6 years.
That he has not seen fit to learn from his errors may leave him in the history books of business next to the unreconstructed pro-slavery business leaders of 1870 and beyond. That is too bad for Mr. Eich.
However, as I mentioned above, his career is not in tatters, although his reputation is. He can begin to rebuild his reputation by doing the right thing and learning from his earlier errors.
Alternatively, he can reach out to his many right-denying and rights-revoking supporters, and fork the code and build a new browser.
Eich is in a unique position right now – he can be the hero of the rights loving part of America, or those who actively seek to remove rights from Americans. Mr. Eich is still a relatively young man, and if he wishes to work for a paycheck every again in his life, he is going to have to make a choice.
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