Two former Netflix employees who criticized anti-transgender comments on Dave Chappelle's TV special are dropping labor complaints and one has resigned from the company, it was announced Monday.
Terra Field, a senior software engineer who is trans, announced that Field had voluntarily resigned as of Sunday.
"This isn't how I thought things would end, but I'm relieved to have closure," Field said in a resignation letter posted online.
Chappelle's "The Closer" first aired on Oct. 1 and gained millions of views. However, Chapelle's disparaging remarks about the transgender community raised protests within Netflix and from activists. About 30 Netflix workers staged a an Oct. 20 walkout and joined a rally at Netflix offices in Los Angeles.
Field was suspended by the company after attending a business meeting for senior executives but was quickly reinstated.
Field and B. Pagels-Minor, a game launch operations program manager who also is trans, filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. They alleged that Netflix retaliated against the workers to keep them from speaking up about working conditions, including "Netflix's products and the impact of its product choices on the LGBTQ+ community."
"We have resolved our differences in a way that acknowledges the erosion of trust on both sides and, we hope, enables everyone to move on," Netflix said in a statement Monday.
Pagels-Minor has acknowledged that they were the employee that Netflix fired last month for allegedly disclosing confidential financial information about what it paid for "The Closer." The information was referenced in a Bloomberg news article.
Pagels-Minor has denied the allegations.
Netflix ran into a buzz-saw of criticism not only with the special but in how internal memos responded to employees' concerns, including co-CEO Ted Sarandos' assertion that "content on screen doesn't directly translate to real-world harm."
Sarandos also wrote that Netflix doesn't allow titles that are "designed to incite hate or violence, and we don't believe 'The Closer' crosses that line."
Netflix continues to make the special available for streaming.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
Weinstein,... Read More