Levi’s brand president says she resigned after pressure over views on COVID-19 school closures

Former Levi Strauss & Co. brand president and U.S. athlete Jennifer Sey said in a new Substack post that she decided to leave Levi’s after allegedly receiving pressure from the company to stop publicly expressing her views regarding COVID-related school closures.

Sey, the mother of four children, wrote that she turned down a $1 million severance package because it would come with a non-disclosure agreement. 

“The money would be very nice. But I just can’t do it,” she said Monday in her post, which was published in a Substack newsletter run by former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss. 

Sey, a vocal critic of school closures related to COVID-19, wrote that she felt “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.”

According to Sey, her story about moving to Denver so her child could to go to school in person — which she said was picked up by national media and led to her appearing on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News — was “the last straw.” 

The former gymnast wrote that other Levi’s employees criticized her for her views on the issue. She alleged that the head of diversity, equity and inclusion at the company requested that she do an “apology tour,” saying that the main complaint against her was that she “was not a friend of the Black community at Levi’s.”

“I was told to say that ‘I am an imperfect ally.’ (I refused.),” Sey wrote.

Sey, who started working at the company in 1999, added that each day “a dossier of my tweets and all of my online interactions were sent to the CEO by the head of corporate communications.”

She also alleged that she was told during a dinner with the company’s CEO Chip Bergh — who she referred to only as “the CEO” in her post — that she was “on track to become the next CEO of Levi’s” and that “all I had to do was stop talking about the school thing.”

However, Sey wrote that the CEO allegedly told her in the last month that it was “untenable” for her to stay at the company.

This came after “anonymous trolls on Twitter” and “some of my old gymnastics fans” called for people to boycott Levi’s until she was fired, emailed the company and phoned its ethics hotline, Sey claimed.

In a statement to The Hill, a Levi’s spokesperson said, “Yesterday, Levi Strauss & Co. announced management changes affecting our executive leadership team. Seth Ellison, EVP & Chief Commercial Officer will assume responsibility as the Levi’s brand president on an interim basis in addition to his commercial duties, replacing Jen Sey, who resigned from the company.”

The spokesperson added that the company has initiated a search for a new Levi’s brand president.