Red Hat CEO speaks out against 'divisive' rights legislation

Published April 16, 2015

by Rick Smith, WRAL Techwire, April 15, 2015.

The "religious freedom law" debate is far from over despite recent changes made in Indiana and Arkansas legislation, and another prominent voice in the high-tech industry has joined a growing list of prominent executives speaking out against these laws.

With a bill still being considered in North Carolina, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst recently issued a statement attacking what he calls "divisive legislation."

Red Hat's (NYSE: RHT) headquarters are based in Raleigh, and the company is widely recognized for its diversity practices in hiring, recruiting and benefits.

"Red Hat has always believed in diversity, inclusion, and equality of voices - not only for our associates, but also our partners, customers, the broader technology industry, and the communities where we live and work," Whitehurst said.

"Our business is deeply rooted in the principles of collaboration and inclusion, where people from diverse backgrounds and experiences come together to share ideas, challenge the status quo, and spur innovation.

"We've seen first hand the impact of this collaboration among diverse groups of people.

"We cannot see any economic benefit from divisive legislation, and would prefer to see more attention given to issues that would have a demonstrable positive impact on all citizens."

These laws are seen as discriminatory by many and have been attacked aggressively by members of the lesbian, gays bisexual and transgender community.

The Human Rights Commission activist coalition has actively recruited tech executives to sign a statement against such laws, and the list has grown to more than 130.

Whitehurst's name is not on the list. But his statement was published at Red Hat's website.

Petition list grows

On Tuesday, senior executives at Verizon, including Chair and CEO Lowell McAdam, added their names to the list.

"Today, Verizon executives join an overwhelming coalition of leaders from the tech world who are sending a clear message that states hoping to attract the high-tech jobs of tomorrow must guarantee their LGBT citizens and visitors are treated equally under the law,” said HRC President Chad Griffin in a statement. “Discrimination is poisonous to a 21st century economy, and corporate America isn't willing to tolerate it, or half-measures to limit it, any longer.”

Here is the list, as of Tuesday:

  • Max Levchin, CEO, Affirm
  • Mark Pincus, Chairman, Zynga
  • Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp
  • Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce
  • Jack Dorsey, CEO, Square
  • Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
  • Logan Green, CEO, Lyft
  • Brian Chesky, CEO, Airbnb
  • Joe Gebbia, CPO, Airbnb
  • Nathan Blecharczyk, CTO, Airbnb
  • Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel
  • John Donahoe, CEO, Ebay
  • Paul Graham, CoFounder, YCombinator
  • Rich Barton, Chairman, Zillow Group
  • Chad Hurley, CEO, Mixbit
  • Adora Cheung, CEO, Homejoy
  • Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote
  • Trevor Traina, CEO, IfOnly
  • Nirav Tolia, CEO, Nextdoor
  • Dion Lim, CEO, NextLesson
  • Bret Taylor, CEO, Quip
  • Joe Lonsdale, Managing Partner, Formation 8
  • Thomas Layton, Chairman, Elance-odesk
  • Fabio Rosati, CEO, Elance-odesk
  • Dave Morin, CEO, Path
  • Mark Goldstein, Chairman, BackOps
  • Kevin Rose, CEO, North Technologies
  • Yves Behar, CCO, Jawbone
  • Padmasree Warrior, CTSO, Cisco Systems
  • Tony Conrad, CEO, about.me
  • Sunil Paul, CEO, Sidecar
  • Michael Moritz, Chairman, Sequoia Capital
  • Dan Schulman, President, PayPal
  • Devin Wenig, President, eBay Marketplaces
  • Robert Hohman, CEO, Glassdoor
  • Laurene Powell Jobs, Founder and Chair, Emerson Collective
  • Mohan Warrior, CEO, Alphalight
  • David Spector, CEO, ThirdLove
  • Shervin Pishevar, CoFounder, Sherpa Ventures
  • David Karp, CEO, Tumblr
  • Reid Hoffman, Chairman, Linkedin
  • Kevin Ryan, Chairman, Gilt
  • Michael Birch, CoFounder, Bebo
  • Hosain Rahman, CEO, Jawbone
  • John Zimmer, President, Lyft
  • Bill Ready, CEO, Braintree
  • Jon Oringer, CEO, Shutterstock Images
  • Drew Houston, CEO, Dropbox
  • Bijan Sabet, General Partner, Spark Capital
  • Douglas Merrill, CEO, ZestFinance
  • Tom Sheahan, CEO, RedOxygen
  • Brian Samelson, CEO, eMaint.com
  • Jeff Weiner, CEO, LinkedIn
  • Daniel Lurie, CEO, Tipping Point Community
  • Aaron Levie, CEO, Box
  • Jeff Weiner, CEO, Linkedin
  • Gary Moore, President & COO, Cisco
  • Travis Katz, CEO, Gogobot
  • Joe Davis, CEO, Webtrends
  • Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
  • Brad Smith, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft
  • Josh Kopelman, Partner, First Round Capital
  • Rob Glaser, CEO, Realnetworks
  • Brian Krzanich, CEO, Intel
  • Jason Goldberg, CEO, hem
  • Evan Reece, CEO, Liftopia
  • Dave Gilboa, CoFounder, Warby Parker
  • Neil Blumenthal, CoFounder, Warby Parker
  • Sean Parker, Chairman, Airtime
  • Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix
  • Charles Phillips, CEO, Infor
  • Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CEO, Joyus.com
  • Michael Brown, President & CEO, Symantec
  • Sarah Leary, CoFounder, Nextdoor
  • Katie Stanton, VP, Twitter
  • Karen Appleton, Founder, Box.org
  • Brit Morin, CEO, Brit + Co
  • Susan Wojcicki, CEO, Youtube
  • Melody McCloskey, Founder, StyleSeat
  • Brandee Barker, Co-Founder & Partner, The Pramana Collective
  • Greg Tseng, CEO, if(we)
  • David Tisch, Chairman, Boxgroup
  • Kristen Koh Goldstein, CEO, BackOps
  • Jessica Herrin, CEO, Stella & Dot
  • Brian O’Kelley, CEO, AppNexus
  • Jeff Lawson, CEO, Twilio
  • Steven R. Boal, CEO, Coupons.com
  • Gary Shapiro, CEO, Consumer Electronics Association
  • Kim Jabal, CFO, Path
  • Ryan Holmes, CEO, Hootsuite
  • Alison Pincus. Co-Founder, One Kings Lane
  • Jeremy Liew, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
  • Larry Page, President, Google
  • Eric Schmidt, Chairman, Google
  • Travis Kalanick, CEO, Uber Technologies
  • Brad Smith, CEO, Intuit
  • Mike Huang, CEO, Glow
  • Aileen Lee, Founder, Cowboy Ventures
  • Kristen Koh Goldstein, CEO, Scalus
  • Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
  • Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
  • Chris Nicholas, President, Asymmetrica Labs
  • Ken Brownfield, CTO, Asymmetrica Labs
  • Stacy Brown-Philpot, COO, TaskRabbit
  • Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro
  • Tony Bates, President of GoPro
  • Jack Lazar, CFO of GoPro
  • Tracy DiNunzio, CEO, Tradesy
  • John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco
  • Lorna Borenstein, CEO, Grokker.com
  • Michelle Peluso, CEO, Gilt
  • Ben Silbermann, CEO Pinterest
  • Lloyd Carney, CEO, Brocade
  • Irakly George Arison, CEO, Shift Technologies Inc.
  • Evan Goldberg, CTO, Netsuite
  • Zach Nelson, CEO, Netsuite
  • David Hassell, CEO, 15Five
  • Brian McAndrews, CEO, Pandora Media
  • Jared Fliesler, General Partner, Matrix Partners
  • Joshua Kushner, Chairman, Oscar Health
  • Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo!
  • Bracken P. Darrell, CEO, Logitech
  • Eric Lefkofsky, CEO, Groupon
  • Dr. David A. Shaywitz, CMO, DNAnexus
  • Dan Rosensweig, CEO, Chegg.com
  • Amanda Kahlow, CEO, 6Sense
  • Tim Westergren, Founder, Pandora
  • Steven Zylstra, CEO, The Arizona Technology Council
  • Chris Wanstrath , CEO, GitHub
  • Lowell C. McAdam, Chairman & CEO, Verizon
  • John G. Stratton, Executive Vice President & President of Operations, Verizon
  • Marni M. Walden, Executive Vice President & President of Product Innovation & New Businesses,
  • Verizon
  • Jim Cicconi, Senior Executive Vice President, AT&T Inc.

The joint statement

The full text of the petition follows:

"The values of diversity, fairness and equality are central to our industry. These values fuel creativity and inspiration, and those in turn make the U.S. technology sector the most admired in the world today.

"We believe it is critically important to speak out about proposed bills and existing laws that would put the rights of minorities at risk. The transparent and open economy of the future depends on it, and the values of this great nation are at stake.

"Religious freedom, inclusion, and diversity can co-exist and everyone including LGBT people and people of faith should be protected under their states’ civil rights laws. No person should have to fear losing their job or be denied service or housing because of who they are or whom they love.

"However, right now those values are being called into question in states across the country. In more than twenty states, legislatures are considering legislation that could empower individuals or businesses to discriminate against LGBT people by denying them service if it they felt it violated their religious beliefs.

"To ensure no one faces discrimination and ensure everyone preserves their right to live out their faith, we call on all legislatures to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes to their civil rights laws and to explicitly forbid discrimination or denial of services to anyone.

"Anything less will only serve to place barriers between people, create hurdles to creativity and inclusion, and smother the kind of open and transparent society that is necessary to create the jobs of the future. Discrimination is bad for business and that’s why we've taken the time to join this joint statement."

Read more at http://wraltechwire.com/red-hat-ceo-speaks-out-against-divisive-rights-legislation/14583048/#zmklrxCxO4CkhaV5.99

 

April 16, 2015 at 11:06 am
Norm Kelly says:

Just because you've reached the level of CEO does not mean you have large quantities of common sense. This is another case.

The CEO of Apple has proven how disingenuous he is. That word, 'disingenuous', is used by libs when they refuse to use the proper description: two-faced, fork-tongued, dishonest with listeners/readers. Same is true for the Red Hat CEO mentioned here. At least with Apple the dishonesty is much more obvious. That whiner complains about a religious freedom law in Indiana that actually protects people who want only to freely practice their religion. That CEO does business in countries that openly kill gays, discriminate against women, and pay their employees barely-livable wages. Red Hat's CEO is slightly more difficult to pigeon-hole. However, if he were intellectually honest, he would have to admit that the socialist Bill Clinton signed the original federal level religious freedom law. At that time, or shortly thereafter, some 34 states passed the same type of religious freedom laws. So this is NOT a Republican, conservative, or Christian effort to institutionalize discrimination against gays. This is a rational response to gay activists specifically targeting Christian business owners. Even the unqualified, incompetent, community organizer occupier is bent on preventing Christians from unrestricted freedom to practice our religion. It all comes down to forcing Christians to accept the liberal religion, beliefs, instead. I am not allowed to follow MY religious teachings because libs/socialists/demons claim that THEIR god/religious beliefs trump my God/religious beliefs. Libs/socialists/demons, and people like Red Hat's CEO and Apple's CEO, choose to disregard the U S Constitution, choose to ignore prior precedent, and spew the discrimination claim with impunity. And media types, typical of media types, simply carry the lib/socialist line as if it means anything.

History, facts, and intellectual honesty go a long way in explaining current hysteria. All of which are ignored by libs/socialists/demons. And for some reason, the libs in most media simply suck down and regurgitate the socialist talking points. Without context, without background, with the intent to mislead their audience. 'We have to pass it to find out what's in it.' 'At this point, what difference does it make?'

If facts, history, and intellect are NOT on the side of this list of CEOs, then their beef does NOT matter. Like most lib/socialist concerns, this one also should be ignored. Some of us will choose to NOT do business with companies that can't be honest. Why would I voluntarily support a business that is actively working against MY best interests. Only government can force me to do this! And they are actively trying to force me to support ideas that work against me & my family; that are detrimental to not just my future but the future of our nation.

April 17, 2015 at 5:57 am
Greg Dail says:

Are these the same tech company executives that would much prefer to bring in ultra-cheap H-1B visa labor from China and India rather than hire home grown talent? Of course they are. I guess their love of "diversity" extends only to sexual preference as no Americans need apply (and most especially veterans!!)..