In a recent social media post, Sinclair President and CEO, Steve Johnson addressed an as-yet-unnamed Sinclair employee’s flagrant remarks regarding race on their Facebook account.
The original post, which has made its rounds in the local community on Facebook and other social media platforms addressed the current political climate, specifically the Black Lives Matter movement which led to nationwide and then worldwide protests in defiance of police brutality and racial inequality.
“This employee does not speak for this institution. Period.” wrote Johnson in a post shared on Sinclair’s Facebook page at around 5 p.m. today. “I have personally communicated directly to this person my extreme distaste for the racially dismissive ideas and attitudes they expressed on social media. I also asked my team to perform a special review to ensure that those attitudes are not found anywhere in this employee’s daily work. Discrimination and racism will not be tolerated in the work of anyone at Sinclair.”
The name of the staff member in question is, at this time, not to be released. Likewise, there is no information as to whether disciplinary action is to take place in response to the post.
“What defines Sinclair more than anything else is that this institution is never satisfied,” wrote Johnson. “As long as there are racial gaps in equity, we know we can and must and will do better.”
He went on to add:
“As an open-access institution, we have a special responsibility to provide opportunities and pathways and working on behalf of the underprivileged, minorities, and the people that our society would otherwise leave behind. It is not enough to merely not be racist – we need to be anti-racist and anti-racism or we will fail at our core mission.”
We’ll have more as the story develops.
Richard Foltz
Associate Editor