Alexander Smith’s PowerPoint presentation doesn’t appear designed to court controversy. The slides, focused on declining maternal health in Gaza, cite public health data from the United Nations and World Health Organization. His employer, the U.S. Agency for International Development, had selected him to share it at the government agency’s Global Gender Equality Conference.
But just before the conference, an issue of contention emerged.
A single slide mentioned international humanitarian law in context of the health crisis in Gaza. USAID staff cited the slide and discussion of international law as potential fodder for leaks, documents and emails Smith shared with The Intercept show. Despite Smith’s willingness to make revisions, his presentation was eventually canceled. On the last day of the conference, he found himself out of a job.
“I thought it is really obscene that misinformation can go out freely out into the world [about Gaza], but I can’t talk about the reality of starving pregnant women,” said Smith, who worked as a contracted senior adviser at USAID on gender and material health. “We can’t even whisper about that in a conference on that topic.”
How? It’s not easy or quick to fire a government employee. It can take months.
In the US, many government workers are contractors, who are easier to fire. Full time employees of the government are less common, and as you said are harder to fire, get better benefits, etc.
It should be noted that this shift has happened in the last 30 years or so. Before that civil servants were the norm and contractors the exception. Civil service used to be a very good job that had some of the best benefits you could find, including some of the last remaining pension programs. You could live a very decent middle class life being a civil servant. Contractors are no cheaper for the government but it does move the liability from them to a 3rd party private employer. And now all the money goes to the business men who get the contracts and pay their employees a pittance with nearly no benefits.
Everything you said is still true. As long as you are an office worker that’s all correct. The government does still contact out most work but most offices still have plenty of government employees. It’s just now the government is more of an oversight and managerial role for 80% of it’s employees. Besides things like hr and finance. It’d be nice if the government actually did things again.
Can’t really fire contractors either. You’d have to get their PM to reassign them. I’ve never seen a contract that allowed the government to dictate the contractors hiring. That contractor might decide to fire the employee at government request but that isn’t required.
I wouldn’t say contractors in government offices are less common than government workers. I can’t read the article but I’m assuming this is actually in USAID and not a contractor facility.
Edit: ah wait the blurb is different than the quoted text. It said “pressured to resign” and senior advisor. That’s quite a bit different and I don’t know who would actually resign unless they thought it would impact them returning to high profile private industry.
At least when I worked at the NIH there were far more contractors than FTEs, but other places might be different
He did something serious. He told the truth about Gaza. It’s not like he did something minor, like sabotage the nation’s postal network to try to throw the election.
He wasn’t fired, he resigned. It also mentions he was a contractor, not an employee.
Media literacy tip: Headlines are written to get clicks, and shouldn’t be trusted. This headline says he lost his job, and he was being paid by the government so it’s not a straight up lie that he lost his government job. But the headline is meant to lead you to assume that he was a government employee that was fired. A headline like “Government Contractor Resigns after Presentation on Gaza was Cancelled” would be more accurate but lead to different assumptions which would be less likely to lead to clicks.
Forcing someone to either resign or be fired is pretty much firing them.
It really isn’t. He’s a contractor it’s part of the deal, you get paid more money, but contract can be ended at any time. They decided to end the contract and gave the option to resign.
And that “contract ending” (firing) came about because of his views on Israel’s Genocide. Him being a government contractor is besides the point since there was almost certainly governmental pressure to remove him. Whether it was hard or soft pressure.
You’re making a lot of assumptions based solely on the word of a scumbag contractor that made a living siphoning off money that could go to impoverished countries by giving bullshit powerpoint presentations.
Well you’re making a whole lot of assumptions yourself. And mine are based on Occams Razor and the US governments consistent actions to stifle free speech that is critical of Israel. The US government has a vested interest in stopping people from revealing the horrors of Israel’s Genocide.
Yeah… you don’t understand Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is they cut the guy loose because he’s wasn’t worth the money they were paying him.
Piling a conspiracy theory on top of that is actually the exact opposite of Occam’s Razor.
It’s not Occams Razor to point out the US’ complete bias towards Israel? It’s not Occams Razor to assume employers consistently act in bad faith in the US? I believe him when he says he was forced out, it wasn’t too long ago that a nurse was fired because she called out Palestinian genocide.You sound incredibly naive.
Did you also even read the article? There are literal emails referencing/heavily hinting at the removal of any reference to Palestinian mother’s starving. Something he was willing to do, but ultimately his whole slideshow was canceled. And right before the end of the conference he was at: he forced to resign. Yet you’d say it’s just a coincidence.
Yeah, it was entirely his choice to resign voluntarily /s
Are you implying someone put a gun to his head? If not, what exactly are you implying?
Loads of conspiracy theories abound, I think it’s important to be clear and not make nebulous implications.
Gun to his head? Conspiracy theories? WTF?
How is ‘resign or be fired’ in any way a ‘voluntary’ resignation?
They could’ve just fired him. He’s a contractor, they just end the contract. That’s what it means to be a contractor.
They gave him an option to resign, but they didn’t have to give him that choice.
In hindsight they shouldn’t have given him that option, the whole point of that is preserve everyone’s reputation. Instead this guy publicized it so it would’ve been easier to just end the contract.
I mean the term firing isn’t really accurate when it’s a contractor. Anyway USAID contractors are the scum of the Earth, not having to pay him for bullshit powerpoint presentations that he just copy and pasted from un.org means more money could potentially be sent to developing countries.
Understand that USAID budgets a relatively meager $150 million for Palestinians and this guy’s pay for this Powerpoint presentation would likely be coming out of that budget. A lot of foreign aid never leaves the country and actually just goes to these contractors. They’re scum of the Earth grifters.
There are degrees of coercion. No, there was no literal gun to his head, but the only choice is how he was walking out that door. Keeping his job was not an option.
They, and you, can use whatever weasel words you want, this guy didn’t choose to leave his position.
According to the article, his presentation was cut from the convention, yet he attended
and presentedanyway.He was given the option of termination or resignation, and chose to resign.
I’m glad he advocated for truth, and grateful he spoke out after resignation.