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Inclusiveness at Mozilla

137 pointsby jallardiceabout 11 years ago

28 comments

pavpanchekhaabout 11 years ago
Wait, wait, hold on. Folks, this man isn&#x27;t a politician, he isn&#x27;t a social crusader, he isn&#x27;t using his position as a platform. At worst, he&#x27;s rich. He hasn&#x27;t taken the throne, or even government office; he&#x27;s the CEO of a private corporation that makes <i>web browsers</i> of all things. Now, sure, he might be against gay marriage. And you might disagree, and have a variety of principles to back your position. But why do we demand perfection in our public figures?<p>Would we have the same controversy if Brendan voted Tea Party (but only privately)? If he were against abortion? If he didn&#x27;t believe NASA needed a bigger budget (or that it did, if you lean the other way)?<p>Sure, gay marriage is good, people should support it, it is a valuable social cause. I can understand your upset if you work for Mozilla, except that Brendan has already stated several times that no policies at Mozilla would change due to his personal views. But can we at least hold that while wrong, being against gay rights does not immediately make you the world&#x27;s most despicable human being?<p>Or, if every opponent of gay rights is sub-human (a conceit that some anti-gay-right crusaders hold in reverse), what issues exactly are similary important? Must we raise a controversy every time a tech leader comes out pro-NSA? Anti-immigration-reform? Pro-university education? Anti-startup? Anti-basic-science? (Note that, just like Brendan&#x27;s, these positions might have reasoned arguments; you wouldn&#x27;t know if you&#x27;re too busy pillorying whomever holds them.)<p>I have a few Christian friends. They are not total idiots, or oblivious to reality; I do not suspect them of secretly trying to convert me. They are very smart folks, who do good work, who happen to be Christian. I know a guy who denies climate change. I don&#x27;t trust his knowledge of climatology, but then again I mostly talk to him about math, where his thoughts on climate science are irrelevant. And he&#x27;s likewise a smart guy, great to work with, industrious, careful, and a great friend. I don&#x27;t demand perfect agreement in my friends; I won&#x27;t demand it of Brendan.
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DanielStraightabout 11 years ago
Brendan Eich has now publicly committed to...<p>1. Include LGBT individuals in making decisions regarding discrimination and inclusivity.<p>2. Continue health benefits for same-sex partners.<p>3. Uphold anti-discrimination policies.<p>4. Create new initiatives to reach out to those who feel marginalized.<p>5. Support an initialize for bringing under-represented people (including LGBT individuals) into tech.<p>And apparently he is committing to all these things despite holding a personal belief that marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples.<p>I admit my perspective on this may be limited due to being a white, heterosexual male, but...<p>Why is having Brendan Eich&#x27;s personal approval more important than having his support? Why does it matter what he believes internally if all his external actions are supportive?<p>We use products and services from numerous tech companies every day, never even asking how their CEOs feel about LGBT issues or what actions they take to be inclusive. But now people are upset because one of the few CEOs to make such a strong public statement of support for LGBT issues (I can&#x27;t think of another one who has even made any statement at all) doesn&#x27;t personally support homosexual marriages? It&#x27;s bizarre. Why is silence (from other CEOs) better than a stated willingness to support people even if he disagrees with what they are doing personally?
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lawlabout 11 years ago
I have commented on this issue before [0].<p>I&#x27;ve been thinking about this again. After reading this I think he still stands to his opinion, that <i>he personally</i> thinks gay marriage is wrong. Obviously he&#x27;s an idiot, but I think even idiots are entitled to their opinion <i>as long as it doesn&#x27;t interfere with his work at mozilla</i>.<p>I think that is also what he&#x27;s trying to say with his blog post. I think he made it pretty clear that he does not want this to interfere with his work at mozilla. So as long as he does not discriminate LGBT at work, <i>I</i> think he deserves a shot at it.<p>You can&#x27;t force him to change his opinion. I think that is more honest than an apology he doesn&#x27;t mean.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7470134" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7470134</a>
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queseraabout 11 years ago
I think this is 95% satisfactory.<p>It&#x27;s unreasonable to demand that someone change their mind about something (and would you believe it if he claimed he had?), but it&#x27;s imperative to be sure that his personal opinion will not bleed into his executive function.<p>He knows he&#x27;s outnumbered, and on the wrong side of history. But he recognizes that he can&#x27;t change himself on demand. It&#x27;s the best we can hope for in an honest person. Or, at least, it&#x27;s the first step.<p>Vigilance, however, is warranted.
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morleyabout 11 years ago
For those of you who are as confused as I was about why he&#x27;s being so defensive about LGBT issues, here&#x27;s context:<p><a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/gay-firefox-developers-boycott-mozilla-to-protest-ceo-hire/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;2014&#x2F;03&#x2F;gay-firefox-develope...</a>
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lhnzabout 11 years ago
Good. This is a promise to act differently when it comes to the company.<p>Perhaps other in this community are right to point out that he&#x27;s not actually apologised or gone back on his own personal views, but as much as I hate to say it, no amount of shouting and getting angry will get somebody with homophobic viewpoints to change their mind. Generally it takes new experiences involving very close friends or family to form a fresh world view.<p>This is probably the best you could expect. I personally was expecting something far less personal and far more corporate from this but he is instead saying that he is making a personal commitment to equality with his actions and not just his words or HR policies. That&#x27;s great.
thirstehabout 11 years ago
He is sorry like the NSA is sorry you found out what they&#x27;ve been doing.<p>Brendan Eich doesn&#x27;t just dislike gays getting married. He hates the concept so much he officially donated to prevent it from being possible.<p>I&#x27;m sorry, but I don&#x27;t sympathize with the argument that he&#x27;s &quot;entitled to his opinions,&quot; because it&#x27;s more than that. Nevermind that he&#x27;s now CEO of Mozilla.<p>(I personally don&#x27;t care if gays can get married in the eyes of a church or not; I care that gays are fundamentally unable to get the same benefits as other people.)
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bluthruabout 11 years ago
Would Mozilla appoint someone to CEO who donated $1000 towards a campaign on banning interracial marriage? Is being against same-sex marriage ok as a personal opinion just because we&#x27;re in the transition period?
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haplessabout 11 years ago
He just wanted to take an opportunity to &quot;express [..] sorrow at having caused pain.&quot;<p>Eich does not regret his actions, he&#x27;s just sorry that you felt pain because of the things he did. Classic business-ese non-apology.
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tilesabout 11 years ago
Eich&#x27;s personal stance on marriage now cannot have an impact on his role, or he will be at heavy odds with this blog post and the public opinion of many Mozilla works to include. He will be under scrutiny as long as he remains CEO.<p>Admitting a sudden change of heart would have zero effect on Mozilla. I&#x27;m not sure what result people are expecting otherwise, but if the workplace environment he describes in this post is satisfactory, what more can be changed?
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strongsauceabout 11 years ago
I am very confused by the different signals the javascript community continues to send about this situation compared to others. On the one hand, people continually get shouted down for saying or doing things that are offensive or insensitive to minority groups (and rightly so), however a lot of the same people seem to give Eich a lot of slack and choose to consider this situation as not a big deal.<p>I do not know the Eich, and I am not gay, so the only thing I can compare it to is as someone who is Asian.<p>If I found out that the CEO of the company I work at was known to have donated to a proposition that didn&#x27;t want Asians to have equal rights, or even simply, not be able to marry, I am not sure I could continue working there. Mozilla itself as an organization seems to be very supportive of everyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, or other preferences, so does that mean individually I am free to support legislation that will legalize inequality?<p>I understand that some LGBT employees at Mozilla have written in support of Eich, but is that fair to only take in the opinion of one person as the opinion of the rest of the group? If someone said, &quot;Look Jackie is Asian, and when I do my ching-chong squinty-eye impression while wearing a conical hat, they laugh and are OK with it&quot; that would still not make the situation okay despite how Jackie feels about it.<p>I guess I am confused, and would like to understand this situation. I&#x27;m not really looking for blood and seeking his resignation. It seems like in this post he is going to do what is right for the company and continue supporting their current policies. That part is great but why was he given a free pass before this post?
asdfologistabout 11 years ago
Nothing in the post indicates he&#x27;s reversed his stance on prohibiting his gay employees from marrying.
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smirksirlotabout 11 years ago
Expressing sorrow for causing hurt isn&#x27;t the same as taking responsibility for it.<p>The very first action should be an apology, but that hasn&#x27;t happened and doesn&#x27;t look like it&#x27;ll ever happen.
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wvenableabout 11 years ago
&gt; I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla.<p>This isn&#x27;t right. The concern is about Brendan&#x27;s fostering equality in the <i>world</i>, not just at Mozilla. Getting promoted just brought this &#x27;issue&#x27; back into the forefront again. He is also now the face of Mozilla and some people who are concerned about equality in the world now feel differently about Mozilla because of that.
jbaudanzaabout 11 years ago
For comparison, this is Google&#x27;s position on Prop 8:<p><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/our-position-on-californias-no-on-8.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;googleblog.blogspot.com&#x2F;2008&#x2F;09&#x2F;our-position-on-calif...</a><p>The tech and open source community owes a lot to its LGBT contributors. When their rights are being threatened, we should be the first in line to offer support. That is why this situation is so upsetting to many of us.
azinman2about 11 years ago
What&#x27;s left unsaid is the reason why this was called into question at all -- his financial support of Prop 8 -- and why it shouldn&#x27;t be an issue at Mozilla. Inheriting an existing culture of openness and maintaining its status quo is not progress nor a reversal of his position on gay marriage. If anything the omission of any reference to it simply shows that his own personal views haven&#x27;t evolved at all -- he&#x27;s just willing to put them at bay while at Mozilla (especially when people make a stink). While that itself is helpful to know, his inner thought process which drives any decision he makes hasn&#x27;t been addressed.<p>This reminds me of seeing at Google the results of an internal survey on LGBT issues. The responses from some engineers, particularly from Russia, were so shockingly hateful it was truly frightening. I&#x27;m not sure why engineers who should be logic driven can become so irrationally hateful towards others who are unlike themselves. Giving $1000 to prevent someone else from getting married is quite a statement on his value structures.
GuiAabout 11 years ago
Bob becomes the CEO of a large entity, FizzBuzzCorp. In the past, FizzBuzzCorp has been respected for its integrity, respect of its employees, and inclusiveness.<p>However, it turns out that in the past, Bob supported groups that claimed that men and women did not deserve the same rights as citizens; for example, that women should not be able to vote, or be on a comparable pay scale.<p>Now appointed CEO, there is concern that Bob&#x27;s views are out of line with the company&#x27;s. Bob says that there is no reason to worry, that FizzBuzzCorp will keep paying its employees equally regardless of gender, giving them the same benefits, etc. as it has historically done.<p>However, Bob does not once say that he regrets his past actions, that they were misinformed, or anything of the sort. Bob insists that FizzBuzzCorp will keep upholding its values; nonetheless, not once does Bob say or do anything which may indicate that his views may have changed.<p>What do we make of Bob? Of FizzBuzzCorp?
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DaleHarries1about 11 years ago
If he stays as CEO then Mozilla will remain a tainted company IMHO. The last thing an open source company wants to do is alienate vast swaths of their contributor base.<p>And what happens when that base leaves? You&#x27;re basically left with a bunch of conservative, white guys (Lets be brutally honest) who hate gay people and god knows what else. My view has always been that racists are homophobes and homophobes think women should know their place. In a tech world trying to be more inclusive of all these groups this will cause Mozilla huge damage.<p>Talk about handing the keys of the castle to your competitors! I&#x27;m sure Facebook, Google et al will be itching to hire some good Mozilla devs!
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asdfologistabout 11 years ago
If he contributed $1000 to a campaign to bring back slavery, and then he declared that Mozilla won&#x27;t tolerate racial discrimination, would that make everything OK?
jedanbikabout 11 years ago
I&#x27;m happy he said something. He didn&#x27;t have to.
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michaelwwwabout 11 years ago
All he had to say for context was &quot;My religious beliefs guide me to hold that marriage is between one man and one woman.&quot; A lot of decent people believe that. I disagree and believe gay people should be able to marry as well, but I wouldn&#x27;t expect people in Eich&#x27;s group to hold that against me. It&#x27;s a free country with freedom of religion and belief.
lukasmabout 11 years ago
Maybe he supports gay guys and don&#x27;t want them to go through marriage, divorce and all that shit.
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DanBCabout 11 years ago
As a private individual he donated $X to anti-gay causes.<p>How much has he, as a Mozilla employee, spent on pro-gay causes?<p>Releasing a pink Mozilla phone that sends Y% of profit to pro-gay causes might be a good move.
lotsofmangosabout 11 years ago
If he doesn&#x27;t fully explain his position on why he donated to that campaign, then he remains hard to trust.<p>He seems to be refusing to state his full position on the reasons behind that donation, other than to ask people to take his word that his reasons are reasonable, while using the fact that people are being rude as a defense not to speak publicly on the subject, which isn&#x27;t entirely reassuring.<p><a href="https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;brendaneich.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;community-and-diversity&#x2F;</a>
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ebbvabout 11 years ago
This is all nice but I&#x27;m still not supporting Mozilla. Brendan&#x27;s views are akin to him being against interracial marriage to me. Would we give him a pass if he said &quot;We&#x27;ll hire African Americans and extend benefits to them, I just personally think of them as sub-human.&quot;? Obviously not.<p>Brendan needs to join the 21st century.
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AdrianRossouwabout 11 years ago
i&#x27;m really not one of those baying for his head, but didn&#x27;t that just kind of read like &#x27;but some of my best friends are black!&#x27;?
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jackmaneyabout 11 years ago
This is not even close to good enough.<p>I will continue to refuse to use Firefox out of general principle.
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baneabout 11 years ago
&quot;My ongoing commitment to our Community Participation Guidelines, our inclusive health benefits, our anti-discrimination policies, and the spirit that underlies all of these.&quot;<p>&quot;...and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain.&quot;<p>Ouch, how can somebody hold two opposing thoughts in their head at once? That&#x27;s basically a denouncement of his own personal efforts.<p>At this point, the best thing he can do to level set things, is to make some equal and public donations to same-sex marriage causes.<p>It sucks when your actions have consequences...especially when those consequences hurt other people.<p>&quot;At the same time, I don’t ask for trust free of context, or without a solid structure to support accountability. No leader or person who has a privileged position should. I want to be held accountable for what I do as CEO. &quot;<p>And that&#x27;s exactly what&#x27;s happening. I hope he keeps getting held accountable for participating in the oppression of a minority group until he takes substantive steps to make public amends.
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