Toward the end of April, Basecamp’s founder and CEO, Jason Fried, published a blog post outlining upcoming changes to how their company would continue operating. Almost immediately, it faced significant backlash. It became a trending topic on Twitter, with folks piling on to either defend Basecamp’s position or criticize it for its tone-deafness and insincerity.
But what was it about Fried’s announcement that elicited such strong reactions? A lot. In particular, though, the first change that Fried announced was, “No more societal and political discussions.”
While Fried has since updated this to read as “No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account,” the damage has been done. On April 30th, 2021, nearly one-third of Basecamp’s employees accepted a severance package and decided to leave the company. Additionally, the public sentiment around Basecamp and its founders has soured.
On the surface, it may seem like prohibiting political discussions in the workplace is a good thing. After all, especially in the United States, politics is a particularly divisive topic. One of the critical challenges of a workplace is to cultivate the psychological safety of its employees so that each employee feels valued, respected, and safe, and can do their best work. By extension, it may seem ideal to prohibit political discussion altogether. It’s even a norm in many cultures to avoid sensitive conversations in casual settings, including treating political discussions as taboo.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of policy that only sounds good on paper. In practice, it only benefits some employees, and it leaves others on shaky ground. For members of minority communities, existing is inherently a political act. By prohibiting political speech, marginalized groups immediately lose the power to advocate for themselves.
Many of Fried’s defenders have made the case that it’s logical and part of polite society to avoid political discussions in the workplace. Still, their distinction of what is political seems to be more accurately described as partisanship. For folks whose rights to exist in society are up for debate, folks who cannot turn on the television without seeing someone who looks like them facing violence, and folks who have consistently been denied a seat at the table or voice in decision-making processes, partisanship has very little to do with the issues we face in the workplace.
To be respected within your workplace, you have to be seen and heard for who you are. While I cannot speak for the BIPOC community, I can say that as a queer person, it is insanely difficult to be unsure of whether or not you can be out at work. Especially as someone who lives in a state where you can still legally be fired or denied public accommodations because of your sexuality, gender identity, or perceived sexuality, navigating workplace conversations is incredibly challenging.
When your coworkers discuss their spouses and children, but you don’t know if you can say the word “boyfriend” or “partner” without facing repercussions, even the most mundane conversations make you feel like you’re walking on eggshells. Given my own experiences, I can only imagine how difficult it must be for my black coworkers, for example, to face microaggressions disguised as friendly chatter or to be expected to be focused and productive given the current climate of violence against black people in the United States.
A company cannot make efforts to do right by its employees and customers if it is unwilling to facilitate discussions around the genuine issues these communities face. Marginalized groups face distinct issues that non-marginalized groups do not, and employers have to recognize this if they want to recruit and retain a diverse talent pool. Because marginalization is a political issue, conversations about these issues are also inherently political.
As a result, prohibiting political discussion minimizes the opportunities for these conversations to happen. It makes it more difficult for folks facing discrimination to be vocal about where company culture can improve. It prevents individual contributors from speaking to their managers about how team interactions prevent them from doing their best work. It ensures that those who are already comfortable remain comfortable, while those who wish to advocate for improvement lose their seat at the table.
I don’t think any of Fried and Basecamp’s critics advocate for workplaces to become entrenched battlegrounds of partisan debate. Nobody wants to work in a place where shouting matches are the daily norm. But, marginalized groups do want to speak out about and advocate on behalf of the issues– which are often politicized in ways that these groups have no control over– that affect their ability to show up at work as their whole, authentic selves. Banning political speech, therefore, prioritizes the comfort of the privileged over the health of the entire community.
Civility and professional discretion are necessary when it comes to political discussions in the workplace. Still, these discussions are also essential for the viability of a workplace to evolve and mature healthily.
—