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Results of the GitHub Investigation

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Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#21
post #4

>>the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment Isn't that like saying, well the hard proof isn't there but its clear you did do something wrong?

Which is an important distinction to make, especially considering the original allegations were specific.

I get the distinction, but I guess I'm just skeptical about the attempt at face saving here.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#22

> The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist or hostile work environment. So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.

Maybe this hostile and unprofessional environment are the "mistakes and errors" from the article. I was curious about this, myself.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#23

> The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist or hostile work environment. So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.

There was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate.

Such as?

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#25

> The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist or hostile work environment. So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.

They are definitely not saying Horvath was lying, they are saying they found no evidence of a sexist or hostile work environment - the investigation was lead by a third party, and best behaviour would have been in place at and before the moment they arrived following the claims, it's likely that many, if not most of the company hadn't experienced the same treatment that Horvath allegedly received, and they would have explained that to the investigators.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#26

> The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist or hostile work environment. So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.

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 kind of interested in what happened to that engineer.

edit:

FYI: her detailed complaint to TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes...

re: The co-worker who couldn't handle being rejected by her:

> The rejection of the other employee led to something of an internal battle at GitHub. According to Horvath, the engineer, “hurt from my rejection, started passive-aggressively ripping out my code from projects we had worked on together without so much as a ping or a comment. I even had to have a few of his commits reverted. I would work on something, go to bed, and wake up to find my work gone without any explanation.” The employee in question, according to Horvath, is both “well-liked at GitHub” and “popular in the community.”

His “behavior towards female employees,” according to Horvath, “especially those he sees as opportunities is disgusting.”

And there was one more incident that would purportedly fall under sexism:

> Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I brought this up to male coworkers, they didn’t see a problem with it. But for me it felt unsafe and to be honest, really embarrassing. That was the moment I decided to finally leave GitHub.

The first one, of course, is bad. And there's possibly a case to be made that if management knew about this engineer and let it slide, well, that does create a hostile environment. Yet I don't think Horvath points out where she complained about this guy's commit-reverting behavior to management.

The second thing, about hula-hooping, without context, it doesn't really mean anything beyond what Horvath claims she was able to grok just by stumbling upon the scene. I think during the original HN discussion, a Githubber said that the hula-hooping happened during an in-office party. Either way, hula-hooping and watching said-hula-hooping is hard to claim, on its face, as being gender-discrimination.

The other stuff though, about the co-founder unfairly pressuring her partner to resign, and the co-founder's wife claiming to have access to Github employees' private data...Those could be things that the company frowns upon enough to merit a resignation.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#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.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#30
To me it sounds more like...

We dont have enough evidence to take legal action in this case, but our investigation found out something worse so we would like Tom to resign before it comes out publicly.

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