NASA has sacked an employee of Caribbean origin in compliance with Donald Trump’s executive order to “terminate” all persons employed under the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative.
The decision came weeks after Rose Ferreira’s post about the removal of her feature from the NASA website went viral on Threads. The article chronicled her journey from a childhood of poverty in the Caribbean and years of homelessness to her academic pursuits and eventual ascent to the position of NASA intern and full-time employee.
In January, the feature disappeared from NASA’s website after acting administrator Janet Petro started bringing the agency into compliance with the White House’s new regulations. Any office or program related to DEIA activities had to be shut down.
Ms Ferreira was in the hospital recovering from pneumonia when she found that the NASA feature about her had been removed. Reacting to the news, she posted on Threads and wrote, “Well, my bio just got removed from the NASA site because of an order that went out to remove stuff about women in STEM.”
She added, “I’ve only been on Threads for a full year, so a lot of people here never heard of a feature that NASA did on me talking about my love of the Moon, how I grew up in poverty, then my homelessness in the US, and then me being at NASA itself. That’s how easy it is to erase you as a person, and everything you’ve done. I’m not even sure how I feel right now.”
The post went viral with over 86,000 likes and was shared more than 11,000 times. As the online community debated Ms Ferreira’s predicament on Threads, her article on NASA’s website was suddenly reinstated. Before it was taken down or after it was placed back up, no official NASA representative reached out to Ms Ferreira to let her know what was happening.
Ms Ferreira was unable to return to work at NASA for another few weeks due to pneumonia. She finally joined the office on Monday, February 24. On Wednesday — 20 days after she posted about her NASA page being removed — she was fired.
Ms Ferreira mentioned that as soon as she entered her weekly one-on-one meeting with her supervisor, she knew what was coming. There was an unexpected guest in the room. She walked inside the office and noticed an HR person sitting in the corner. Then, she was informed that she was being fired “effective immediately” for not fulfilling her position’s responsibilities.
“When I was about to open my mouth, she waved her hand at me, and was like, ‘No, we’re not doing that,'” Ferreira said. “I’m hearing ringing in my head. They didn’t let me speak in my own meeting,” she added.
Not much has changed at the space agency in the weeks since she was fired. Allegations of blatant bullying over coworkers’ Pride displays have surfaced, coupled with demands that NASA personnel should remove LGBTQI+ symbols from their workstations.