Levi’s president Jennifer Sey stated she was compelled out of her tenure on the firm and compelled to give up after talking out publicly towards faculty closures introduced on by COVID.
Sey stated she even gave up a $1 million severance package deal with the intention to preserve talking overtly a few matter she feels strongly about.
Sey, who served as model president for the attire firm, wrote in Bari Weiss’s “Frequent Sense” Substack Monday that Levi’s CEO Charles Bergh knowledgeable her in latest weeks that it was “untenable” for her to stay with the corporate. Sey had labored for the corporate for greater than twenty years.
“I used to be supplied a $1 million severance package deal, however I knew I’d need to signal a nondisclosure settlement about why I’d been pushed out. The cash can be very good. However I simply can’t do it. Sorry, Levi’s.” she stated within the submit.
Sey, a mom of 4, defined within the submit that she had lengthy been an advocate for youngsters and that Levi’s had at all times supported her prior to now when she expressed different political opinions, however that each one modified after Sey refused to cease talking out towards California shutting down public faculties within the identify of security as a result of coronavirus pandemic.
“Early on within the pandemic, I publicly questioned whether or not faculties needed to be shut down. This didn’t appear in any respect controversial to me. I felt—and nonetheless do—that the draconian insurance policies would trigger essentially the most hurt to these least in danger, and the burden would fall heaviest on deprived youngsters in public faculties, who want the protection and routine of college essentially the most,” Sey wrote.
Sey and her household relocated from San Francisco to Colorado so her youngsters may return to in-person studying. There she continued to talk out towards the closures.
The previous exec stated the Levi’s head of Variety, Fairness, and Inclusion requested her to go on an “apology tour,” however she refused.
Sey stated that that final fall, the corporate’s CEO instructed her that she “was on monitor to turn out to be the following CEO of Levi’s” and that “the one factor standing in my method, he stated, was me. All I needed to do was cease speaking in regards to the faculty factor.”
In response to KTVU’s request for touch upon Sey’s claims made within the submit, Levi’s stated, “In the present day, Levi Strauss & Co. introduced administration modifications affecting our govt management crew. Seth Ellison, EVP & Chief Industrial Officer will assume accountability because the Levi’s® model president on an interim foundation along with his business duties, changing Jen Sey, who resigned from the corporate.”