GitHub found no evidence to support the claims, but Preston-Werner decided to leave

Apr 22, 2014 13:07 GMT  ·  By

For the past month, GitHub has been investigating a series of allegations made against the company and some of its employees, including Tom Preston-Werner, one of the co-founders.

The company has found no evidence to back the harassment claims, but Preston-Werner still decided to step down from GitHub.

“The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment. However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment. In light of these findings, Tom has submitted his resignation, which the company has accepted,” reads GitHub’s announcement.

The investigation also didn’t find evidence regarding gender-based discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or abuse. Even so, the company will now implement a number of new HR and employee-led initiatives, as well as training opportunities to make sure that employee concerns and conflicts are taken seriously.

As mentioned, back in March, an engineer with the startup – Julie Ann Horvath – resigned and made a few public statements on Twitter to back her decision. She tried to keep details to a minimum, but she did mention that she had been harassed by someone in the GitHub leadership and his wife.

Those persons proved to be Tom and Theresa Preston-Werner, even though they continue to deny all allegations. With the investigation results there to back them up, they stand tall above the entire mess.

Horvath further explained that the environment at the company was sexist against women. Separate from the allegations Horvath made against the GitHub cofounder, she also said that a co-worker she rejected romantically had ripped code off projects that they worked together on, which also contributed to her decision to leave.

Now that GitHub has issued its final statement on the matter, Horvath denies that an investigation was ever conducted. She is also mad that while Preston-Warner left, there’s still no mention of the man who bullied her out of the code they wrote because she wouldn’t accept his advances.

While unnamed, this mysterious man may actually be Horvath’s ex-boyfriend. The information comes from a Medium post signed by people who say they’re working for GitHub. The messages there indicate that Horvath had actually dated this programmer she’s now accusing prior to her taking a job at GitHub and that they were on good terms.

The entire situation over at GitHub is turning into a real soap opera.