Levi’s Brand President Jennifer Sey said she was driven from her position for speaking out against California’s coronavirus pandemic school shutdowns, the New York Post reported Monday.
The veteran Levi’s employee explained in an article posted online that she refused the company’s $1 million severance because she did not wish to put her name on a nondisclosure agreement regarding the reason she was forced out.
Sey wrote:
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.
In a social media post on January 28, Sey wrote it was “truly astonishing” how many people were upset about the idea that children should have some kind of normalcy in their lives.
“Really? We don’t collectively believe in this as a goal?” she asked.
Sey explained the problem started when company employees began complaining that she was being vocal about whether schools should be closed in San Francisco amid the early days of the pandemic.
She was condemned for her views and later contacted by the head of the company’s corporate communications telling her to quiet down.
“I refused to stop talking. I kept calling out hypocritical and unproven policies, I met with the mayor’s office and eventually uprooted my entire life in California — I’d lived there for over 30 years — and moved my family to Denver so that my kindergartner could finally experience real school,” Sey explained.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s federal mask mandates are still forcing children to wear masks while riding buses even though multiple blue states recently announced plans to lift state-sanctioned mask rules on school campuses, Breitbart News reported.
Sey’s Substack article continued:
In the fall of 2021, during a dinner with the CEO, I was told that I was on track to become the next CEO of Levi’s—the stock price had doubled under my leadership, and revenue had returned to pre-pandemic levels. The only thing standing in my way, he said, was me. All I had to do was stop talking about the school thing.
Eventually, the CEO said it was “untenable” for her to remain at the company.
“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,” Sey wrote. “The money would be very nice. But I just can’t do it. Sorry, Levi’s.”