Facebook Workers Outraged Over Jewish Exec’s Support Of Kavanaugh
Facebook’s headquarters have been rife with internal debate as hundreds of employees shared their disdain over a top executive’s presence at Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing last week, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The social media giant has since admitted it “made mistakes” in how it handled the situation, CNBC reported.
Employees brought their concerns to CEO Mark Zuckerberg after Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s head of global policy, was seen in the middle of the hearing on Sept. 27, according to Journal. Kaplan is a close friend of Kavanaugh, a fellow George W. Bush administration aide.
Hundreds of employees wrote on internal message boards about Kaplan’s decision, with many arguing that it came across as though the social network was supporting a man accused of sexual assault, according to reports.
The controversy was addressed at Zuckerberg’s weekly question-and-answer session last Friday, and COO Sheryl Sandberg weighed in on an internal discussion thread, according to people familiar with the posts.
Zuckerberg said at the meeting that while he wouldn’t have gone to the hearing, Kaplan’s appearance didn’t violate Facebook policies.
“This fire has been burning for a full week now,” one employee told WSJ.
Kaplan was initially defensive about appearance, claiming he took the day off and so went to the hearing on his own time. He later apologized in an internal forum for not recognizing how his presence at the hearing could be controversial, people familiar with the response said. However, he didn’t apologize for supporting Kavanaugh.
In a statement to CNBC, Facebook said: “Sexual assault is an issue society has turned a blind eye to for far too long — compounding every victim’s pain. Our leadership team recognizes that they’ve made mistakes handling the events of the last week and we’re grateful for all the feedback from our employees.”
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com, or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
