On June 1, multi-billion-dollar hedge fund Schonfeld Strategic Advisors' Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Alliance sent out an email with the subject line "#BlackLivesMatter" that read "it is more important than ever to spread tolerance, acceptance, equality and love."
"We have the ability to change the world with our voices and our actions. Staying silent does not invoke change," the email continued.
A week later, an executive assistant to Schonfeld Strategic Advisors general counsel Mark Peckman was fired after she changed her work email signature to include the phrase "Black Lives Matter."
The executive assistant, whose identity is known to Business Insider, asked that her name not be used for fear of negative repercussions. She changed her signature after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the police, which has prompted protests against police brutality in every US state as well as other countries.
The termination comes as Corporate America grapples with a national outcry over systemic racism. This has extended to conversations about how employees are able to express their views, both in a work environment and in their personal lives in ways like social media, participating in protests, and making donations.
The executive assistant was dismissed by the hedge-fund firm because she did not follow the proper protocol to change her email signature, Schonfeld said.
To change her signature, she would have needed to work with the firm's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Alliance, which sets policies around underrepresented groups at the firm. The alliance recently allowed people to change their email signature this month to add the rainbow pride flag in honor of LGBTQ pride month.
"The employee was terminated because she refused to follow firm policies and processes around email signature blocks. Schonfeld encouraged her to share and promote her views and passions with the firm, and we provided her multiple opportunities to do so that were within firm policy, which she declined," the firm said in a statement.
"Schonfeld Strategic Advisors is committed to creating an inclusive, diverse, and conscientious environment and culture for its employees. We have and will continue to encourage political, social and intellectual discourse among employees, and support our employees' efforts for personal activism and philanthropy to better the world we live in."
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The firm declined to say if anyone had been dismissed over the email signature policy before.
Read more: From an army of traders in Long Island to quants around the world: What's coming next for hedge-fund powerhouse Schonfeld Strategic Advisors
Schonfeld was founded more than two decades ago by its billionaire namesake, Steven Schonfeld, who originally focused on quick stock trades and built up a team of more than 1,000 traders who copied his style. He's since rebuilt the business, with a focus on computer-run strategies, as well as long-term equity investments. The firm's CIO, Ryan Tolkin, told Business Insider last year that the firm's goal was to become "the premier equities hedge fund globally."
The firm's three-person senior leadership team is all white men, which is very common in the hedge-fund industry. Preqin, an industry data source, found that 23% of funds' investment teams are female in 2019, while a 2018 Knight Foundation report found that 2.6% of industry assets in 2018 were run by minority-owned funds.
The change in the executive assistant's email signature was not noticed by her supervisor and other executives until it was brought up in a meeting, the firm said.
According to the firm, after the change was noticed, she was asked to join the alliance's call on June 5 about the protests and also to remove "Black Lives Matter" from her email signature until it was approved, both of which she declined. She was then asked again to remove it, and declined again.
Last Monday, a senior executive and HR spoke with the executive assistant and said while she was free to post on her personal social media, she needed to remove the slogan from her work email, according to the firm. She refused and was eventually dismissed because of it, the firm said.
The firm shared an email with Business Insider that was sent out to all employees following the June 5 call with links to: different charities to donate to, including a link to a directory of local bail funds which are used to pay for protesters' bails; an op-ed in The New York Times titled "I Don't Need 'Love' Texts From My White Friends" that called for people to fight "anti-blackness"; Netflix documentaries, including "The 13th"; and more.
An earlier version of the story included the executive assistant's name.
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