Imagine going to work one day only to be, in effect, fired — not because of anything you did or didn’t do at your job, but because of something you did in your personal life. Something religious. Or maybe, something political.
Imagine if you were denied a promotion at work because a co-worker found out you had made a personal donation to a conservative candidate. Imagine if your environmentally-correct boss discovered that, in your free time at home, you supported an organization that exposed the fallacies of man-made global warming and asked you for your resignation. Imagine if you were the successful CEO of Widget Corp, lauded and respected for your accomplishments, but clients or customers found out you were a tea partier and demanded you be forced out.
That’s exactly what happened to Brendan Eich, a highly-respected tech guru in Silicon Valley and co-founder of Mozilla Corporation, after he was appointed CEO in late March. In less than a week, he was forced out of this position for no reason other than that he had a made a $1000 contribution to the Prop 8 initiative in 2008. His own money. On his own time. In his private capacity. Mozilla had nothing to do with it. Nor did he discuss gay marriage at work.
In an interview with The Guardian on Wednesday, Eich told the paper “I think I am the best person for the job and I’m doing the job” and that his personal beliefs were not relevant. He couldn’t be more correct.
But forced out he was after a huge outcry from thousands of employees and Silicon Valley residents, after half of the Mozilla Foundation board resigned — yes, resigned! — and OKCupid blocked web surfers from accessing their site through the Firefox portal.
At first, it looked as if he might survive the onslaught, as statements were issued on the Mozilla blog about their support for LGBT issues, marriage equality and respect for diversity. “[A]s long as you are willing to respect others, and come together for our larger mission, you are welcome. Mozilla’s community is made up of people who have very diverse personal beliefs working on a common cause, which is a free and open internet