Levi's former Brand President Jennifer Sey resigned from the company, rejecting a $1 million payout, in order to be allowed to keep speaking against COVID-19 lockdowns.
Sey announced her resignation Monday in "Common Sense," journalist Bari Weiss' Substack newsletter.
Sey writes that she was pushed out of Levi's after a 23-year career over her refusal to stop speaking up about COVID-19 policies, most notably school closures, saying that "early on in the pandemic, I publicly questioned whether schools had to be shut down."
This, she said, didn't seem at all controversial.
"I felt — and still do — 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," she said.
Sey adds that her stances brought accusations of her being a "racist — a strange accusation given that I have two Black sons — a eugenicist, and a QAnon conspiracy theorist."
Eventually, Sey's activism earned her rebukes from her bosses, the company's legal department, and human resources.
Then, in the fall of 2021, CEO Charles Bergh told Sey that she was on track to become Levi's next CEO, but "the only thing standing in my way, he said, was me," she wrote.
"All I had to do was stop talking about the school thing." Sey continued, adding that Bergh eventually spoke with her again, allegedly saying that her presence at Levi's became "untenable."
Sey wrote that while she was offered a $1 million severance package, she knew she would "have to sign a nondisclosure agreement about why I'd been pushed out."
"In my more than two decades at the company, I took my role as manager most seriously," Sey explained. "I helped mentor and guide promising young employees who went on to become executives. In the end, no one stood with me. Not one person publicly said they agreed with me, or even that they didn't agree with me, but supported my right to say what I believe anyway."
Sey noted that she liked to think that her former colleagues knew that the situation "was wrong."
"I like to think that they stayed silent because they feared losing their standing at work or incurring the wrath of the mob," she added. "I hope, in time, they'll acknowledge as much. I'll always wear my old 501s. But today I'm trading in my job at Levi's. In return, I get to keep my voice."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.