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AMERICAN EAGLE’S, AERIE RELEASES STATEMENT REGARDING LEAKED EMAILS AND WORKPLACE HARASSMENT
Founder of Aerie, Jerry Silverman expresses sympathy for colleagues and issues an apology to all those affected.
PITTSBURGH, Nov. 21, 2016 – Early this morning we found out that WikiLeaks hacked some controversial emails between one of Aeries senior management team members and another colleague. These emails revealed that over the course of three years, this individual sent many sexist, racist and homophobic emails to several of their colleagues. Although these colleagues did not engage in the conversations, they did fail to report the harassment to their management. Our “Aerie Real,” and “Share Your Spark” campaign have been built around acceptance, equality, and diversity. Until the publishing of these emails earlier this morning, the founder of Aerie, Jerry Silverman claims to have had no knowledge of them. Silverman would like to publically apologize for this issue and offer counseling to any employees who may have been affected by this harassment.
“What these emails reveal is not what this program represents. We are a company who believes in our customer’s ability to be themselves, and to embrace every part of their being. However, these emails suggest otherwise, and had I known about these degrading emails I would have put a stop to them immediately. I am deeply saddened by the way one of my senior managers has acted over the past three years and action will be taken. Our “Aerie Real” campaign does not stereotype by gender, race, or sexual orientation, and therefore we do not condone the horrible racist and homophobic things that were said.”
As one of the most inclusive brands who truly values and celebrates diversity, we are deeply sorry for this mistake. We have a zero tolerance policy for any form of harassment and we will be holding ourselves accountable to fix this issue. All of our employees will be reminded of our code of ethics and the expectations and responsibilities they agreed to. Employees must attend an hour long seminar where situations like this are analyzed, and the correct steps to take are discussed. Employees who may have been affected by this harassment are encouraged to come to the counseling sessions that we will offer. We will do everything in our power to keep this workplace a happy and healthy one, and prevent a situation like this from ever happening again.
About AEO, INC.
AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS, Inc. (NYSE: AEO) is a leading global specialty retailer offering high-quality, on-trend clothing, accessories and personal care products at affordable prices under its AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS® and Aerie® brands. The company operates more than 1,000 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom and ships to 81 countries worldwide through its websites. American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie merchandise is also available at 141 international stores operated by licensees in 22 countries. For more information, please visit ae.com.
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Aerie 