If what happened to Eich happened to a peon it would be indefensible. The only reason why it was acceptable in the case of Eich is that he was in a position to

If what happened to Eich happened to a peon it would be indefensible. The only reason why it was acceptable in the case of Eich is that he was in a position to represent the views of the company. If he was a mid level engineer working on Spidermonkey and got fired over a political contribution it would have been completely ridiculous.