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When Moving Your Company Headquarters is Unethical

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A building in the background and sign up front that reads "HP"

HP’s former Palo Alto headquarters

Hewlett-Packard (HP) can trace its origins back to 1938, where its two cofounders started the electronics company in a rented garage in Palo Alto, California. If it sounds familiar, it’s because you can trace many companies back to a garage in Silicon Valley, including Apple and Google. Silicon Valley, the area in southern California where many tech companies got their start, has HP to thank for its status as the center of the technological world. Now HP’s leaving California for Texas.

HP’s not alone. Oracle is as well. Oracle’s owners’ political views have always been at odds with the more forward-thinking people of California, and Texas just represents something far more aligned with their political ideology. Furthermore, it’s cheaper.

But is it ethical?

While HP is not stating that their employees will have to relocate (yet), Oracle is making no such promise. Many employees will be able to choose to work remotely, for the time being, but others will have to move to their new headquarters in Austin Texas.

In 2024, there’s going to be a solar eclipse. The best place to view it in the U.S. will be down in Texas. A few of my friends who went to see the last total solar eclipse in the United States are planning another road trip to Texas. One of my friends outright refuses to go over fears for his safety as someone with dark skin. I can’t blame him. As a lesbian, I’m nervous too.

In Texas, along with many other places in the south, women, racial minorities, and religious minorities have to accept second-class status. This opens them up to potential violence or limited rights. It’s a challenge for a visit. It’s an even bigger challenge for a move.

Imagine telling someone they have to give up their rights for their job.

Moving your company to Texas is an unethical decision.

Limited Rights

If you want to get an abortion in Texas, you’re going to be in for a road trip. There were 40 clinics who provided abortion services in Texas in 2013. Due to new limitations on clinics, made specifically to limit the number of providers in the state, that number dropped to 22 by 2019. In 2017, 96% of counties in Texas had no abortion clinics. Finding an abortion clinic is tough, but it’s not the only challenge. Texas, for no reason to restrict abortion access, also requires a 24-hour wait between a counseling and the procedure. The counseling must take place within 100 miles of the procedure. This means they could need two trips to the facility, will need to take at least one day off, maybe more.

Women lose rights by moving from California to Texas.

Texas is known for hate crimes, including containing a large number of towns that were formerly “Sundown Towns.” These are towns where no one but white people were allowed to live. Everyone else had to leave by sundown. While this is illegal now, many of the towns with a history of such racism are still unsafe for anyone who’s not white. Elsewhere in Texas, even in “liberal” cities, like Austin, there are neighborhoods where Black people report feeling uncomfortable, even segregated.

“As an Austin parent, you grow tired of reminding your black sons what to do when the police pull them over for driving while black. Not ‘if’ they get pulled over, but ‘when.'”

“When shopping while black, it isn’t unusual for sales clerks to either pretend they don’t see you or stalk you. But in Austin, we have had sections of entire business strips close during the Texas Relays because those places didn’t want to serve ‘that many’ blacks.”

– Roxanne Evans, Writing in Statesman

Maps showing US states that protect (or harm) LGBTQ people

Few states protect LGBTQ people, and many “red” states actively discriminate.

 

This year has been the deadliest year on record to be transgender in the United States. As of this writing, at least 41 transgender people have been murdered. Three were in the state of Texas. Hate trickles down. Texas’ governor, Greg Abbott, has come out strongly against LGBTQ rights. He’s against same sex marriage and adoption. Texas has laws in place allowing adoption agencies to reject same-sex couples, and has fought to undermine other marriage rights. Texas is where a boy was forced to wrestle girls because he was transgender. He’s won at states twice now. Texas still allows conversion therapy for minors, a practice that can only be classified as torture, with as much as a 50% suicide rate. With so much hate coming from the top, it’s not as safe to be gay in Texas as it is in California or many other parts of the United States.

Hate crimes against LGBTQ people between 2016 and 2017 went up more than 400%. In a single year. The crimes are getting more violent as well. Hate crimes against LGBTQ people are up over the last four years, and many of them originate out of red states like Texas.

Finally, and I’m just going to say this. There’s no legal weed in Texas, unlike California. This means police have a “better” excuse to stop and frisk whoever they choose, and we already know who police choose to search when they do this. It makes Texas more unsafe for minorities, hurts anyone who uses it for medicinal purposes, and, of course, is like prohibition for those who consume it recreationally.

Diversity Drop-off

Perhaps now you could see why BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ+ people wouldn’t want to move to Texas. It’s less safe for them, and they’ll be giving up important civil rights and protections. It’s because of this that it’s downright unethical to ask employees to move from the civilized world to Texas. As such, groups already drastically underrepresented in technology, namely women and racial minorities, will avoid relocation to Texas or other such rearward-facing states. What they’ll save in property costs or taxes, they’ll certainly pay in diversity and innovation. These companies are stating they they don’t mind if they lose their female, LGBTQ, BIPOC, or non-Christian employees. They will lose them, and those are losses they’re willing to accept.

Of course, no one wants to move for their job, least of all to Texas. Families who want to stay closer to extended family, people who want to stay with friends, or dual income households just won’t be able to relocate. You could argue that, because of this, relocation is always cruel.

However, it’s exceptionally cruel to those who will be disproportionately affected, simply because of the way they were born or their religious beliefs. Oracle, HP, and maybe even Tesla, are taking these small cost benefits and saying, diversity doesn’t matter, these people don’t matter.

It’s hard not to take that personally.

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