(Republican Party News) – According to a report from The Western Journal, Jennifer Sey, the former president of Levi’s, has announced that she was forced out of her position with the company due to her views on COVID-19, stating that she turned down a severance package that would have forced her to remain silent about the internal controversy that led to her stepping down from her post.
Sey created a post on Bari Weiss’ Substack, Common Sense, on Monday, where she said, “I quit so I could be free.”
The former Levi’s president stated that she and the San Francisco company were totally in harmony until the coronavirus pandemic struck.
“Early on in the pandemic, I publicly questioned whether schools had to be shut down. This didn’t seem at all controversial to me. I felt — and still do — that the draconian policies would cause the most harm to those least at risk, and the burden would fall heaviest on disadvantaged kids in public schools, who need the safety and routine of school the most,” she went on to write, pointing out that her comments caused a lot of anger.
“In the summer of 2020,” Sey continued, “I finally got the call. ‘You know when you speak, you speak on behalf of the company,’ our head of corporate communications told me, urging me to pipe down. I responded: ‘My title is not in my Twitter bio. I’m speaking as a public school mom of four kids.’”
“But the calls kept coming. From legal. From HR. From a board member. And finally, from my boss, the CEO of the company. I explained why I felt so strongly about the issue, citing data on the safety of schools and the harms caused by virtual learning. While they didn’t try to muzzle me outright, I was told repeatedly to ‘think about what I was saying,” the former CEO added.
“Although she said her liberal activism brought no objections from the company, she got a far different reaction when she wanted Levi Strauss to take a stand against school closures in San Francisco — closures that drove her to move to Colorado, where her kindergartener could attend school in person,” Sey revealed.
Sey made an appearance on the Fox News program, “The Ingraham Angle,” in March of 2021 concerning how her move to Denver was “the last straw.”
Company employees began to castigate her during meetings.
“Meantime, the Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the company asked that I do an ‘apology tour,’” she wrote in the post. Sey said no. She then stated that her longtime support for black employees and kids meant nothing to anyone.
“The head of HR told me personally that even though I was right about the schools, that it was classist and racist that public schools stayed shut while private schools were open, and that I was probably right about everything else, I still shouldn’t say so. I kept thinking: Why shouldn’t I?” Sey added in the post.
It was around this time that her awakening happened. Sey was told she could become the CEO of the company.
“All I had to do was stop talking about the school thing,” she commented.
But the attacks kept on coming.
“In the last month, the CEO told me that it was ‘untenable’ for me to stay. I was offered a $1 million severance package, but I knew I’d have to sign a nondisclosure agreement about why I’d been pushed out,” the former CEO wrote. “The money would be very nice. But I just can’t do it. Sorry, Levi’s.”
Sey then stated that the company she loved is “trapped trying to please the mob — and silencing any dissent within the organization. In this it is like so many other American companies: held hostage by intolerant ideologues who do not believe in genuine inclusion or diversity.”
She went on to say that “no one stood with me. Not one person publicly said they agreed with me, or even that they didn’t agree with me, but supported my right to say what I believe anyway.”
“I like to think that many of my now-former colleagues know that this is wrong,” Sey wrote. “I like to think that they stayed silent because they feared losing their standing at work or incurring the wrath of the mob. I hope, in time, they’ll acknowledge as much.
“I’ll always wear my old 501s. But today I’m trading in my job at Levi’s. In return, I get to keep my voice,” Sey said.
The Levi Strauss company has confirmed that Sey stepped down from her position but then declined to provide any further elaboration concerning her allegations, according to a report from Bloomberg.
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