GitHub still won’t explain if it fired someone for saying ‘Nazi,’ and employees are pissed

Now in protest, they’re using Slack to call Nazis what they are

By Zoe Schiffer@ZoeSchiffer  Jan 15, 2021, 12:44pm EST

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Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images

GitHub employees are protesting the firing of a Jewish colleague who was let go two days after he warned co-workers in Washington, DC to stay safe from Nazis.

The employee was chastised for using divisive language, according to news first reported by Business Insider. Now, GitHub workers are saying “Nazi” repeatedly in Slack, in regards to the US Capitol rioters, to protest what is being perceived as unfair treatment.

“Others have already said so, but I just want to say it explicitly myself - I think that nazis were present at some protests on Jan 6, and that it’s very scary to see those ideas on display,” wrote one senior engineer in a 390-person Slack channel called #inclusion-belonging. “100% Nazis were there, and 1000000000% Nazis are scary as fuck and do not belong anywhere. PARTICULARLY AT GitHub!” replied another.

Another GitHub employee documented roughly 50 times the word “Nazi” was used in Slack prior to the events on January 6th. Employees often talk about politics, and some engineers have made Nazi jokes in the past. In a Slack message from 2014, one staffer wrote that “nazis gave the jews free healthcare.” He still works at GitHub today.