Amid controversy, Mozilla’s CEO Brendan Eich resigned from the company last week after an online firestorm that criticized his support of California’s Proposition 8. In a statement, Eich said that, “under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader.”
Mozilla is adamant the board did not force Eich to resign, and asked him to stay on in another role. It also says that although some employees tweeted for his resignation, support for his leadership was expressed by a larger group of employees. And this is all a good thing for the company from a legal standpoint, because Brian Van Vleck in the California Workforce Resource Blog explains that under California Labor Code, it is illegal to fire an employee because he has donated money to a political campaign.
