In November 2021, Breaking Code Silence hired several employees. All of the new employees were hired with a time-limitation of 2 months except for this employee. She was promised long-term employment at Breaking Code Silence but was laid off weeks later by now-CEO Jennifer Magill after submitting complaints about then-CEO Vanessa Hughes. She also identifies as LGBTQIA+.

Below is an email that Jennifer Magill sent to the employee on December 10th, 2021 informing her that the time limitation did not apply to her.

However, the employee soon became uncomfortable by a series of alleged interactions she had with the then-CEO Vanessa Hughes.

One particular interaction had her concerned about how Ms. Hughes would use the Hilton Grant money and the legality of it. On December 15th, 2021, she emailed the PI for the grant – Athena Kolbe – to privately inform her of the concerns. The email can be read below.

Through a public records request, we received this email showing that instead of protecting this employee and researching the concerns first, she forwarded the unredacted email to Vanessa Hughes and Jennifer Magill on December 15th, 2021.

Note: UNCW did redact a portion of this email. The former employee provided us the copy above which was unredacted and shared her concerns about Ms. Hughes’ inappropriate behavior towards her. With that full context, we believe it was inappropriate for Athena Kolbe to have forwarded that email to Vanessa Hughes and Jenny Magill without protecting the employee from possible retaliation.

On December 16th, 2021, the employee filed several internal complaints about the conduct of Breaking Code Silence’s then-CEO Vanessa Hughes towards her. Below are those complaints.

On December 17th, 2021, Jennifer Magill sent the following letter to the employee stating that they had not secured funds for her continued employment. Ms. Magill stated, “I also think an understanding that this was a time-limited, temporary position would help fears of its impact on your employment record.” This email appears extremely puzzling due to Ms. Magill’s December 10th, 2021 email reassuring this employee that there was no time limitation on her employment with Breaking Code Silence. It is also puzzling that this happened less than 48 hours after Athena Kolbe forwarded Jennifer Magill and Vanessa Hughes this employee’s concerns and less than 24 hours after this employee filed several internal complaints about potentially serious conduct.

On December 18th, 2021, Jennifer Magill followed up with a separate termination letter.

To add to the issues, the employee later noticed that she was not paid for the overtime she believed she had worked during her short employment at Breaking Code Silence. After not receiving an adequate response from Jennifer Magill, she filed a complaint with the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries.

Breaking Code Silence fought the complaint over several hundred dollars and stated they did not believe this employee was owed anything further. However, this former employee ultimately prevailed and was determined that Breaking Code Silence owed her $165.00.