GitHub regrets firing Jewish employee who called Trump-incited mob “Nazis”

Enlarge / Trump-incited mob tries to breach the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

GitHub Inc. yesterday apologized for firing a Jewish employee who had urged colleagues to “stay safe” and avoid “Nazis” on the day a mob incited by President Trump stormed the US Capitol. GitHub said it “reversed the decision” and indicated it is trying to hire the employee back.

“Stay safe homies, Nazis are about,” the employee, whose identity hasn’t been revealed publicly, wrote in an internal Slack chat room on January 6. He was fired two days later, after one “coworker was quick to criticize the employee for using divisive rhetoric,” Business Insider reported last week.

“I did not know that, as a Jew, it would be so polarizing to say this word,” the former employee wrote in a Slack group for Jewish employees shortly “before his corporate accounts got deactivated,” Business Insider wrote. The former employee “is Jewish and had family who died in the Holocaust,” the article said.