Janneke Parrish, a program manager for Apple Maps, said she was fired by the tech giants this week.
She is one of the co-founders of an #AppleToo platform. The Medium blog publishes stories about harassment and discrimination from past and present employees of the company. Parrish says she believes #AppleToo is the reason she was let go.
According to Parrish, the company launched an investigation into a “leak” of information on Sept 18. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, then sent out a memo informing workers that he was “disappointed.”
“On Sept., I was called into a meeting with HR and global security and told I was being investigated for possibly leaking the meeting,” Parrish told The Verge. “My devices were confiscated, but before they were, I deleted apps with personal information, like Robinhood. Apple doesn’t need to know how much money I lost on GameStop. I work on political campaigns, and Democratic political campaign information has to be kept private.”
She said that on Oct. 8, she was contacted by global security and HR and informed of her suspension. She was eventually terminated. Apple told Parrish it was because she deleted information from the devices.
Parrish believes it was because she was shining a light on in-house discrimination.
“I believe I was fired in retaliation for speaking out, for my work with #AppleToo, and out of concern that I was organizing to help other employees tell their stories. In my view, this is entirely retaliation for trying to bring Apple’s actions to light and publicly asking the company to do better,” she told the outlet.
