Levi's model chief quits over activism in opposition to pandemic restrictions

Retail Operations:

• Jennifer Sey, who rose to Levi’s model president lower than 18 months in the past after a greater than 20-year-career there, give up the storied denim maker Monday following disagreements over her pandemic-related activism, she stated in a Substack visitor publish. 

• She was supplied a $1 million severance bundle however refused it as a way to converse out about her departure, she stated. Sey additionally maintained that Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh, at a dinner assembly final fall, instructed her that she “was on observe to develop into the following CEO” however she must “cease speaking in regards to the college factor.”

• Levi’s did not touch upon the specifics of her publish, however confirmed by e-mail that she resigned. Chief Business Officer Seth Ellison has taken on Sey’s obligations on an interim foundation as Levi’s searches for her alternative, the corporate stated.

Dive Perception:

Sey captured the media’s consideration in 2021 with vocal criticism of the San Francisco public colleges’ resolution to proceed with digital studying and her subsequent resolution to maneuver to Colorado in order that her kids might attend college in particular person.

“Early on within the pandemic, I publicly questioned whether or not colleges needed to be shut down,” she wrote on Monday. “This did not 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 colleges, who want the security and routine of faculty essentially the most.”

In keeping with Sey’s social media feeds, press interviews, protests, and different activism up to now couple of years, her focus has been on opening colleges to in-person studying, shortening the space youngsters should keep after they play exterior and scaling again using masks. Whereas she downplayed the hazard of the COVID-19 virus to kids, it is not clear if she ever floated any of essentially the most egregious unscientific claims in regards to the illness or its potential therapies. She did, nonetheless, typically align herself with those that did.

For instance, she discovered an particularly receptive ear at retailers like Fox Information, and in dialog with Naomi Wolf, who was banned from Twitter after posting anti-vaccination falsehoods. Sey’s publish on Monday was written for the Substack account run by Bari Weiss, who declared that she is “completed with COVID,” and he or she believes masks are ineffective and the pandemic “is not actual anymore,” opposite to what’s medically accepted.

“Nationwide media picked up on our story, and I used to be requested to go on Laura Ingraham’s present on Fox Information,” Sey stated in her publish. “That look was the final straw.”

Sey is not alone in her frustration with college insurance policies, nonetheless. After the strict lockdown interval of 2020, public well being officers and educators struggled with the right way to stability safety in opposition to the virus with the significance of in-person studying and socialization.

With some individuals preventing mask-wearing and, later, vaccinations, medical specialists remained involved in regards to the illness’s means to unfold and mutate. Older individuals, these with underlying well being circumstances and pregnant persons are particularly weak to the extra lethal penalties of the COVID-19 virus, in response to the CDC. Limitations in colleges designed to stymie the unfold of the virus have been seen as a option to defend these in danger, along with defending kids.

In her public discussions about the necessity to reopen colleges, Sey typically minimized the implications for youngsters or their potential to transmit the virus to members of the family who’re in danger. However, COVID-19 ranks as one of many high 10 causes of demise for youngsters ages 5 by way of 11 years, in response to the CDC. As of mid-October 2021, 8,300 kids in that age group had been hospitalized with the illness and practically 100 had died from it. 

In her publish, Sey, a former gymnastics champion who wrote a best-selling e-book and produced an award-winning documentary on baby abuse throughout the sport, expressed some gratitude for her tenure at Levi’s, however criticized the corporate for actions she stated it took in opposition to her. She stated a day by day “file” of her social media posts was despatched to Bergh, who she stated as soon as in contrast her to Donald Trump.  Within the final month, she stated Bergh instructed her staying on the firm was “untenable.”

“I used to be supplied a $1 million severance bundle, however I knew I’d should signal a nondisclosure settlement about why I’d been pushed out,” she stated. 

Sey stated the denim retailer is “trapped making an attempt to please the mob — and silencing any dissent throughout the group,” she wrote. “On this it’s like so many different American corporations: held hostage by illiberal ideologues who don’t imagine in real inclusion or range.”

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Daphne Howland

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