Alexander Smith’s PowerPoint presentation doesn’t appear designed to court controversy. The slides, focused on declining maternal health in Gaza, cite public health data from the United Nations and World Health Organization. His employer, the U.S. Agency for International Development, had selected him to share it at the government agency’s Global Gender Equality Conference.
But just before the conference, an issue of contention emerged.
A single slide mentioned international humanitarian law in context of the health crisis in Gaza. USAID staff cited the slide and discussion of international law as potential fodder for leaks, documents and emails Smith shared with The Intercept show. Despite Smith’s willingness to make revisions, his presentation was eventually canceled. On the last day of the conference, he found himself out of a job.
“I thought it is really obscene that misinformation can go out freely out into the world [about Gaza], but I can’t talk about the reality of starving pregnant women,” said Smith, who worked as a contracted senior adviser at USAID on gender and material health. “We can’t even whisper about that in a conference on that topic.”
Late last week, Smith said he got a call from the company that contracted his position with USAID. He was told he could either resign or be terminated over “personality differences.”
Forcing someone to either resign or be fired is pretty much firing them.
It really isn’t. He’s a contractor it’s part of the deal, you get paid more money, but contract can be ended at any time. They decided to end the contract and gave the option to resign.
And that “contract ending” (firing) came about because of his views on Israel’s Genocide. Him being a government contractor is besides the point since there was almost certainly governmental pressure to remove him. Whether it was hard or soft pressure.
You’re making a lot of assumptions based solely on the word of a scumbag contractor that made a living siphoning off money that could go to impoverished countries by giving bullshit powerpoint presentations.
