What Is the Problem with Mozilla CEO Incident?

by Gerard Emershaw

On April 3, newly appointed Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich stepped down. Following Eich’s appointment as CEO of the internet browser company, a number of its employees took to Twitter and began tweeting their displeasure over this appointment. In addition, three members of Mozilla’s Board resigned following Eich’s appointment. At issue was political contributions that Eich made in 2008 in support of California’s Proposition 8 which opposed same-sex marriage.

The question is why anyone other than a Mozilla shareholder or a Mozilla shareholder cares about this. What exactly is the problem here? Mozilla has the right to have any CEO that it chooses. Brendan Eich has the right to take the job when offered but also has the right to step down from the job if he so chooses. Mozilla employees have the right to their opinion. The government is not involved in this situation in any way, so neither the First Amendment nor any other Constitutional right is at play.

Conservatives have been complaining about a politically correct “lynch mob” mentality at Mozilla. Oddly, these types of critics tend to be the very same kind of people who champion the rights of corporate entities. So why should Mozilla not have the right to do what it did? If the employees of a Christian company demanded that their CEO step down and the company forced that executive to do so after it was revealed that he or she had donated $1,000 to Planned Parenthood, would right wing critics whine about that? Doubtful.

Should Mozilla employees have been more tolerant? Perhaps. But they have a right not to be tolerant. The truth is that people on both the left and right of the political spectrum tend not to be tolerant. Would critics of Mozilla and its employees prefer that the Nanny State step in and mandate that social libertarians “play nice” with traditionalists? Or vice versa? Hopefully not.