The View | Mind your own business

Should business leaders be sacked for their opinions even when these opinions have no direct connection with the businesses they are running?

This, far from easy to answer question, recently faced the board of Sony Pictures, which ended up deciding that Amy Pascal, one of the company’s most senior executives, would have to go after leaked emails revealed she had penned racist remarks about President Barack Obama’s film tastes.

These emails were leaked in the wake of a massive cyber attack on Sony, widely believed to be in retaliation for releasing a comedy film that deeply upset the North Korean government. Neither Pascal nor Sony have denied the authenticity of these leaked confidential emails so it is fair to assume that they are genuine.

Last year Brena Eich, the CEO of Mozilla, was also forced to step down after it became known that he had given financial support to an anti-gay marriage campaign. Mozilla is a non-profit technology company which was faced with a powerful boycott threat should Eich have remained in office.

Personally I really can’t stand racism of any kind and support the idea of people making a lifetime commitment by getting married regardless of whether they are of the same sex. Thus I do not share the views of the executives who were forced out of office.

However I cannot but feel uneasy over what happened because it raises all sorts of issues over freedom of thought and freedom of speech. In other words the question needs to be asked whether a person holding obnoxious views or even perfectly acceptable but distinctly minority views should have to forfeit their employment even when these views play no evident role in the way they are running their businesses.

After Eich was forced out, Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s executive chairwoman, posted some thoughtful remarks about the dilemma her company faced. She said: “Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need to have free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.”