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Levi’s Brand President Resigns In Open Letter

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Mary Rooke Commentary and Analysis Writer
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Former Levi’s Jeans’ global brand president Jennifer Sey resigned in an open letter Monday claiming the company lost sight of its values.

“If you told me that after achieving all that, after spending almost my entire career at one company, that I would resign from it, I’d think you were really crazy,” wrote Sey in an open letter on the Common Sense Substack. “Today, I’m doing just that. Why? Because, after all these years, the company I love has lost sight of the values that made people everywhere — including those gymnasts in the former Soviet Union — want to wear Levi’s.”

Sey said her time with Levi‘s was always the “most consistent” part of her life, writing in her letter that she always felt comfortable to be open about her life and politics until the pandemic hit.

Sey wrote that she became an advocate to open schools because she felt “that the draconian policies would cause the most harm to those least at risk, and the burden would fall heaviest on disadvantaged kids in public schools, who need the safety and routine of school the most.”

Instead of feeling supported by Levi’s, as she did when she openly advocated for Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or other social justice causes, she was “condemned” for demanding schools open, according to her letter. (RELATED: For Levi’s, Freedom Isn’t Fashionable)

Sey, the mother of two black sons, wrote in her letter that she was labeled a racist, a eugenicist and a QAnon conspiracy theorist for publicly advocating to open schools.

She said the company often takes a public stand on political issues like gay rights, voting rights and gun safety. But when she approached the leadership team about advocating to open San Francisco schools, she was told Levi’s doesn’t “weigh in on hyper-local issues.”

“I explained why I felt so strongly about the issue, citing data on the safety of schools and the harms caused by virtual learning,” Sey wrote. “While they didn’t try to muzzle me outright, I was told repeatedly to ‘think about what I was saying.'”

The atmosphere at Levi’s grew worse when Sey appeared on Laura Ingraham’s show to discuss the effects prolonged school closure had had on her son after sharing a tweet about his experience with virtual learning, according to her letter.

Levi’s Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion told Sey she had to do an “apology tour” because employees didn’t feel like she was a “friend of the Black community at Levi’s,” her letter stated.

The company told Sey to tell everyone she was “an imperfect ally,” despite Levi’s black employees asking her in 2017 to be the executive sponsor of the Black Employee Resource Group, according to her letter.

Despite decades mentoring rising employees in Levi’s company, Sey said she never received public support for her right to free speech.

“I like to think that they stayed silent because they feared losing their standing at work or incurring the wrath of the mob,” she wrote.

Sey claimed in her letter the CEO of Levi’s told her shortly before she resigned that it was “untenable” for her to stay on in her current position, and offered her a $1 million severance package to leave. Of course, to get the money, she would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring her from speaking freely about her time at Levi’s.

She declined.

“The money would be very nice. But I just can’t do it,” Sey wrote. “Sorry, Levi’s.”