USA Today fired the Diversity editor who jumped to conclusions about the identity of the Boulder shooter

Was her firing reasonable? To be honest, I m not sure. On the one hand I m against canceling people over tweets, especially old tweets someone put up when they were a dumb teenager.

On the other hand, I do think there are times when someone s tweets are not compatible with their job. For instance, I think the SF School Board made the right call to strip Alison Collins of her leadership position based on her tweets about Asians. Collins hasn t really apologized and hasn t deleted the tweets. She clearly still believes Asians use white supremacist thinking to get ahead. And that s just not a tenable position to hold if you are part of a district that is 30% Asian people.

I think you can make a similar argument here. I don t think Jhaveri should be fired because of angry reactions to her tweets. Never give in to the mob. But it is fair for her bosses to ask if her admittedly careless public statement is really compatible with her job. To be blunt, what she said is racist. Not all mass shooters are white and saying this is exactly as offensive as any other universal, negative stereotype about a particular race. Big surprise, no one wants to be associated with mass shooters because of their skin color.

Should an apology have been enough to fix this? That s where I m more open to argument. She did delete it and says she apologized. I don t see the apology but maybe I missed it or maybe she deleted that too. So even though I think this tweet was more than dumb I kind of wish USA Today wasn t so quick to fire an 8-year employee.

via hotair.com