Honestly, it does not surprise me though. This is what I mean when I say that there is likely legal advice behind all of these decisions. Not loony woke people, lawyers tend not to give advice based on lunatic beliefs (well unless you are named Rudy or Sidney Powell) but rather based upon their risk assessment of your position. The truth is for the sake of whatever the business is, it pretty much ends in it is easiest and considered the best move to fire the person.
My cousin works in the insurance business. She was working for a company and had a co-worker who at one point was asked to write a company memo and distribute it company wide. The woman wrote the memo as requested. Then she brought it to my cousin (who was her immediate supervisor) and asked her to proof it. My cousin read it and it was essentially written in broken English with all sorts of errors because Spanish was this woman's first language and she did not write well in English.
My cousin said to her "I know English is not your first language so I can help you rewrite this if you would like."
The woman started to cry and ran out of her office and down the hall. A short time later my cousin's boss called her into a meeting in a conference room and when she walked in her co-worker was sitting on one side of the table along with some managers and my cousin's boss. They asked her to have a seat and then explained to her she had been reported for making racial remarks to a co-worker. They recounted the remarks, correctly, and turned to my cousin's co-worker and asked her if she felt these remarks were racially denigrating to her. She began crying again and said they were. They turned to my cousin and asked her if this was what she had said and she said it was but that it had nothing to do with race she just wanted to help her new co-worker with the memo.
The boss then informed her that due to the fact that this was reported as a "racially charged incident" it would need to be bumped up the corporate chain. Three days later they called my cousin back into the same conference room, this time without the co-worker present, who she noted had not been in her office since the memo issue. Turns out they had given her leave until they solved the problem with my cousin. They informed her she was fired, effective immediately and would be escorted out of the building once she was finished gathering her things from her office and that the escort would remain with her during her remaining time in the building and indicated the security guard now standing outside the conference room.
My cousin was, of course, horrified. She asked if she could speak before they escorted her out and her boss said she could but it would not matter the decision was final. She then said to her boss and the other managers gathered in the room that she hoped they did not consider her a racist and that they understood from working with her over the years that she always strived to help her fellow employees and to treat them all in a kind manner. The boss said to her they did not think she was a racist and did believe she was a kind and good person. The problem was that the company had a policy that anything reported as a racially charged incident must end in termination of the employee accused of the racism. Her co-worked had signed the paperwork stating she felt my cousin had racially discriminated when she stated that "English was not her first language" and that she had "never been so hurt or embarrassed in any other work environment."
My cousin asked where her co-worker had been and her boss told her she had been given time off as she informed the company that working with my cousin was too painful for her. A few days after my cousin was fired another co-worker contacted her and told her the woman that made the complaint against her came back to work and had been promoted to my cousin's position. The co-worker also let my cousin know that the company memo went out as it had been written, in broken English, and so had the next one she had been asked to compose.
The lesson here, for my cousin, was that the next time someone asks you to proof a memo, don't, and just let it go out as is. According to my cousin over the two years since she left her former co-workers that stay in touch have told her that all the company memos have been in broken English and people learned not to comment as a couple other workers that made jokes about the broken English memos were also fired.
