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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

I really wish we could seperate people's private and professional lives.

This guy in his private life wrote some nasty blog posts. That shouldn't impact his professional life. Nor vice versa.

This blog post isn't sufficiently against the law to end up with him in prison. Yet this is a case of extrajudicial punishment.

Unless there is any evidence of him bringing that thinking into his work, he shouldn't be punished.

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This guy is the head of diversity. His job description involves him ideally having a) having a certain open state of mind b)the trust of the people he is dealing with. So this blog post disqualifies him since it demonstrates he lacks trait a) and he will most likely be lacking b) in the future making him totally useless at his job. So this is not a punishment, just a consequence of past misdeeds. If this man had been born white, the consequence would have most likely been that he would have never received this role in the first place. So i don't see how this is different in any way

This guy expressed views that would reasonably call into question whether or not he would do the position he was in. Merely the appearance of such views might make it impossible for him to be able to e.g. get the respect of communities he might have to work with as part of his role.

For many other positions I would agree with you, but not a position like this.

7 billion people in the world. I don't think the global lead on diversity strategy role should be going to someone who wrote an elaborate essay in which he was clearly anti-Semitic. He graduated university in 1994 - it's not like he was a kid when he was writing these words.

Who else has he helped discriminate against based on their ethnicity or views?

How private is it when you can easily read his thoughts online? If you want a private life then keep it private.

I just have an alternative name for the world of work.

You can't be openly racist in your private life, and have it not be a problem in your professional life managing and hiring people at a job. The idea that you think it shouldn't is weird. If I think that social netowrks are garbage that should be regulated out of existence and their operators jailed (in my private life, on my blog), should it affect my job at Facebook?

What if I believe in my public private life that Russia should rise up and destroy the west for its decadence and weakness - should it affect my job in the CIA?

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