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Results of the GitHub Investigation

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Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#71

Post by falcolas »

tptacek wrote: post #53
falcolas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the denial is couched in the terminology "there was no legal wrongdoing". Not that there was no wrongdoing, just nothing blatant enough (or which left evidence) that it broke laws.

No, the denial says "no evidence exists to support the claim". That's a direct and testable assertion, not weasel words.

Actually, that specific denial is limited to two items: gender based discrimination by Tom Preston-Werner and his wife, and the existence of a discriminatory/hostile workspace. Not coincidentally, these are the two claims which would have been against the law, and also the least of the claims brought forth by Horvath (though it's the angle latched onto by the media) - she instead claimed personal harassment from Horvath's wife, and the non-responsiveness of HR to these issues.

The only real gender based problems she had were related to male co-worker's responses to female co-workers hula-hooping, as I remember it.

There wouldn't be much evidence of personal harassment, particularly the kind described by Horvath.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#72

Post by ig1 »

This statement is pretty terrible.

The line "sexual or gender-based harassment" looks like it's been specifically written to exclude other kinds of harassment, especially given that term is used multiple times.

Employee harassment of any kind is unacceptable and if they're not willing to admit that it's a problem and act as if it's something that should be brushed under the carpet then it will continue to be a problem.

I appreciate that this might turn into a legal case so they're acting to protect themselves, but it would be better if they hadn't put out any statement rather than this weasel worded one.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#74

Post by mmanfrin »

cjbprime wrote: post #14

There appear to have been weirdnesses around the investigation, such as Julie Ann Horvath (and other ex-employees) remaining uncontacted until it was wrapping up: https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832 So I don't know how much stock you can place behind the idea that the investigators GH hired, who did not contact ex-employees competently, found them blameless. The resignation probably speaks for mor…

    while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of 
    mistakes and errors of judgment
'found them blameless'?

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#75

Post by carlosdp »

brandon272 wrote: post #29

It sounds like Mrs. Preston-Werner was a regular presence at the GitHub office and, according to Horvath, had extensive access to private information throughout GitHub's systems despite the fact that she wasn't an employee. If true, that should certainly be a privacy and security concern to any GitHub customer or user.

I thought the allegation was she had access to internal chat, not customer data.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#77

Post by marincounty »

"Because I would hear ‘We should hire more women!’ on almost a daily basis from the same people who kind of refused to respect me as a peer."

I don't know what went on here, but I have heard these words before. And most of the time it has nothing to do with gender.

(As to hn deleting comments--I don't understand the moderators. I posted something earlier about the divide between the rich/poor--and claimed something about the lack of modern Horatio Algiers. I guess it really bothers some of the fancy boys? I come back to this site and comments are magically removed. I commented in the article on Lenin. Yes--this is off topic; I'm just curious why whenever I bring up money, and how many rich boys fathers helped them out graetly; I am edited?)

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#78

Post by danielweber »

gregimba wrote: post #2

I don't even know what to make of this. They say there was no evidence but he is still resigning.

TOTALLY MADE-UP EXAMPLE:

1. Employee makes sexual harassment claim.

2. Outside HR consultant brought in.

3. Consultant asks "where is your anti-sexual harassment training course?"

4. CEO says o_o.

5. HR consultant establishes a policy for the company.

6. Board asks CEO to resign for not having the thing asked for in #3.

Not having a training course isn't illegal -- it's not even evidence that anyone was sexually harassed -- but the board can ask the CEO to move on because they feel he was not sufficiently protecting the company.

(PS: Post-college I've never worked at a place large enough to have required a harassment training course. This is just an example of "something the CEO should have done to protect the company but didn't, and we got away with it this time but might not next time.")

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#79

Post by iandanforth »

This makes me sad. My interpretation of these events was that a toxic employee instigated a witch hunt and was successful. By simple observation of numbers here, you probably disagree with this. But for the few of you that do agree with this point of view, take it as a reminder of the crucial role of hiring. You can easily hire the person who ruins your company's culture and causes your downfall.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#80

Post by danso »

courtneypowell wrote: post #60
danso wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's possible that Horvath was right about the poor actions of management, and at the same time, very little of what she alleged seemed to fall into the bounds of gender-based discrimination. A colleague who reverts your commits because you wouldn't date him...that's not gender-based, that's office-romance strife (though obviously, such strife can be exacerbated with a gender imbalance at the company). I'm ki…

How is a woman who refuses to date another employee considered an "office-romance?" Retaliation as a result of unwanted advances is considered harassment. sexual harassment definition: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was an actual romance. I meant that this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain of "romance" (the existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the face of Horvath's description, automatically based on gender-discrimination.

From your link:

> Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).

1. Did Horvath provide proof that this immature behavior was more-than-isolated and unpunished? It would be easy for her to, as it would exist in the git logs. But we don't know if it happened dozens of times, or just more than one time.

2. Reverting commits is still part of an engineer's job. She alleges that the commits were unfair...again, this evidence would exist in the logs. But what if the commits were justifiable, and the engineer was being snippy about it? That doesn't really count as harassment.

3. Was Horvath retaliated against by management (e.g. fired or demoted) for being angry at her colleague? Her account doesn't claim that.

The link you posted says that harassment, and sexual harassment, is illegal...But what Horvath describes is not harassment by the legal definition, because the other engineer could claim that the reverts were part of his job. Again, the commit logs, or even a description of them, are needed to decide whether this constituted harassment beyond a coworker criticizing another.

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