A software engineer who was reportedly fired by software company Bitwarden for putting “Assigned by God” as his preferred pronoun on his employee profile has filed a civil rights lawsuit against his former employer. His lawyer explains, “We have a real growing hate against Christians now. I feel like, for some reason, companies don’t think they have rights because of the spirit of the time.”
Chard Scharf, who served as Vice President of Software Engineering at the company’s Jacksonville, Florida, location, is alleging in his lawsuit that Bitwarden violated his Title VII rights against religious discrimination, according to a report by the Epoch Times.
The suit claims that Bitwarden violated Scharf’s rights because it allowed other employees to post preferred pronouns on their employee profiles, while it prohibited Scharf from using his preferred pronoun based on his religious beliefs.
“Bitwarden violated Title VII when it placed Mr. Scharf into a disfavored class by promoting its gender ideology, when it failed to approve his reasonable request for accommodation, and when it terminated his employment,” the lawsuit states.
The suit adds that Scharf listed his preferred pronouns after he was repeatedly pressured to add them to his Slack employee profile under his company’s “inclusivity initiative.” But when the software engineer wrote “Assigned By God” to his employee profile page, he was told to remove it.
“Had Chad set aside his religious beliefs and acquiesced to Bitwarden’s promotion of gender ideology, he would not have been fired, which means his religious beliefs were the cause of his termination,” Scharf’s attorney Jennifer Vasquez told The Epoch Times.
Scharf also reportedly filed a discrimination complaint against Bitwarden with The Florida Commission on Human Relations (FCHR). Earlier this year, the board ruled in favor of the company, deciding that it had not discriminated against Scharf.
Vasquez told The Epoch Times that she is currently handling an appeal of that decision.
“We have a real growing hate against Christians now,” the attorney said. “I feel like, for some reason, companies don’t think they have rights because of the spirit of the time.”
Vasquez added that she believes “COVID kind of woke up this religious right debate in this workplace.”
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