Mozilla say they are open and inclusive: but change your mind or you get sacked
A half-dozen years ago, Brendan Eich donated $1,000 to the campaign for Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that set out to ban same-sex marriage. It passed with 52 percent of the vote, but was later overturned by the courts.
Eich, the pro-Proposition 8 donor, stepped down as CEO of Mozilla, a company he co-founded, because various stakeholders at the company objected to his political donation from six years ago.
At that time, a majority of Californians and an even bigger majority of Americans, including Barack Obama, the commander-in-chief who "evolved" to end the ban on gays and lesbians in the military, believed that gay marriage ought to be illegal. (In fact, that same year, around 40 percent of Americans thought gay sex should be illegal.) Now? "The backlash against Mozilla, which produces the Firefox Web browser, included calls for his resignation from developer groups and Mozilla's employees," the San Jose Mercury News reported, "as well as a widely discussed block on Firefox browsers by the dating site OKCupid, which asked users to switch their choice of Web browsers to show their support for gay marriage."
Eich was not saved by a blog post he wrote making these commitments to Mozilla employees:
- Active commitment to equality in everything we do, from employment to events to community-building.
- Working with LGBT communities and allies, to listen and learn what does and doesn’t make Mozilla supportive and welcoming.
- My ongoing commitment to our Community Participation Guidelines, our inclusive health benefits, our anti-discrimination policies, and the spirit that underlies all of these.
- My personal commitment to work on new initiatives to reach out to those who feel excluded or who have been marginalized in ways that makes their contributing to Mozilla and to open source difficult. More on this last item below.
In other words, no one had any reason to worry that Eich, a longtime executive at the company, would do anything that would negatively affect gay Mozilla employees. In fact, Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker, his longtime business partner who now defends the need for his resignation, said this about discovering that he gave money to the Proposition 8 campaign: "That was shocking to me, because I never saw any kind of behavior or attitude from him that was not in line with Mozilla’s values of inclusiveness."
It's almost as if that donation illuminated exactly nothing about how he'd perform his professional duties.
Calls for his 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.
Consider an issue like abortion, which divides the country in a particularly intense way, with opponents earnestly regarding it as the murder of an innocent baby and many abortion-rights supporters earnestly believing that a fetus is not a human life, and that outlawing it is a horrific assault on a woman's bodily autonomy.
Calls for his 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.
Consider an issue like abortion, which divides the country in a particularly intense way, with opponents earnestly regarding it as the murder of an innocent baby and many abortion-rights supporters earnestly believing that a fetus is not a human life, and that outlawing it is a horrific assault on a woman's bodily autonomy.
The political debate over abortion is likely to continue long past all of our deaths. Would American society be better off if stakeholders in various corporations began to investigate leadership's political activities on abortion and to lobby for the termination of anyone who took what they regard to be the immoral, damaging position?
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.
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.
Its implications are particularly worrisome because whatever you think of gay marriage, the general practice of punishing people in business for bygone political donations is most likely to entrench powerful interests and weaken the ability of the powerless to challenge the status quo.
Its implications are particularly worrisome because whatever you think of gay marriage, the general practice of punishing people in business for bygone political donations is most likely to entrench powerful interests and weaken the ability of the powerless to challenge the status quo.
There is very likely hypocrisy at work too. Does anyone doubt that had a business fired a CEO six years ago for making a political donation against Prop 8, liberals silent during this controversy (or supportive of the resignation) would've argued that contributions have nothing to do with a CEO's ability to do his job? They'd have called that firing an illiberal outrage, but today they're averse to vocally disagreeing with allies.
Most vexing of all is Mozilla's attempt to present this forced resignation as if it is consistent with an embrace of diversity and openness. Its public statements have been an embarrassment of illogic, as I suspect the authors of those statements well know.
Most vexing of all is Mozilla's attempt to present this forced resignation as if it is consistent with an embrace of diversity and openness. Its public statements have been an embarrassment of illogic, as I suspect the authors of those statements well know.
"Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech," the company wrote.
"Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard."
This is a mess.
The sloppy logic here is indicative of a company doing damage control, one trying to placate its critics but implicitly disrespecting them by doing so with nonsense.
"Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness," the statement goes on. "We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all."
This is a mess.
The sloppy logic here is indicative of a company doing damage control, one trying to placate its critics but implicitly disrespecting them by doing so with nonsense.
"Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness," the statement goes on. "We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all."
But the company is plainly taking the position that it won't employ, in leadership positions, anyone who publicly holds orthodox Christian or Muslim views on gay marriage.
Agree or disagree, they aren't being welcoming of "everyone." They should have the courage to say so.
The statement continues, "our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public."
Agree or disagree, they aren't being welcoming of "everyone." They should have the courage to say so.
The statement continues, "our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public."
But this forced resignation sends exactly the opposite message: that if you want to get ahead at Mozilla, you best say nothing about any controversial political issue, which could affect your career, whether now or years from now in a changed political environment.
Mozilla says, "While painful, the events of the last week show exactly why we need the web. So all of us can engage freely in the tough conversations we need to make the world better." Again, Mozilla's actions will undercut tough conversations by making fewer people willing to engage in them. If you believe that an open, robust public discourse makes the world better, as they purport to, they've made the world worse. This action is a betrayal of their values, not a reflection of them.
At least that's what this Mozilla user and fervent gay-marriage proponent believes. In that same statement, Mozilla states, "We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves. We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better."
I wonder if, now that I'm upset, Mozilla will move quickly to engage me. I wonder if they'll engage Andrew Sullivan, who wrote, "This is a repugnantly illiberal sentiment. It is also unbelievably stupid for the gay rights movement.
Mozilla says, "While painful, the events of the last week show exactly why we need the web. So all of us can engage freely in the tough conversations we need to make the world better." Again, Mozilla's actions will undercut tough conversations by making fewer people willing to engage in them. If you believe that an open, robust public discourse makes the world better, as they purport to, they've made the world worse. This action is a betrayal of their values, not a reflection of them.
At least that's what this Mozilla user and fervent gay-marriage proponent believes. In that same statement, Mozilla states, "We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves. We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better."
I wonder if, now that I'm upset, Mozilla will move quickly to engage me. I wonder if they'll engage Andrew Sullivan, who wrote, "This is a repugnantly illiberal sentiment. It is also unbelievably stupid for the gay rights movement.
You want to squander the real gains we have made by argument and engagement by becoming just as intolerant of others’ views as the Christianists? You’ve just found a great way to do this. It’s a bad, self-inflicted blow. And all of us will come to regret it."
They didn't merely "try and change someone's mind" by expressing their personal story. Disinclined to stop at personal persuasion, they waged a pressure campaign that could be summed up as "change your mind, or else."
Now that the ultimatum has been rejected, they're not taking their share of responsibility for the outcome. They should face and own up to the fact that they helped force out a CEO solely because he disagreed with them about same-sex marriage. Put in their position, I'd feel uneasy about admitting that too. The rise of marriage equality is a happy, hopeful story. This is an ugly, illiberal footnote, appended by the winners.
They didn't merely "try and change someone's mind" by expressing their personal story. Disinclined to stop at personal persuasion, they waged a pressure campaign that could be summed up as "change your mind, or else."
Now that the ultimatum has been rejected, they're not taking their share of responsibility for the outcome. They should face and own up to the fact that they helped force out a CEO solely because he disagreed with them about same-sex marriage. Put in their position, I'd feel uneasy about admitting that too. The rise of marriage equality is a happy, hopeful story. This is an ugly, illiberal footnote, appended by the winners.
