That's what Charles Vavra wrote in an email to the HR Director of Honeywell International, his now former employer, after she had reminded him of the company's requirement that he complete its unconscious bias training.
Over the next few weeks, the HR Director and other company officers tried to convince Vavra to complete the training. Vavra's response? "Whatever the consequences … I will accept." The consequences were Vavra's termination.
Vavra had a strange way of showing his acceptance of those consequences. He sued Honeywell for retaliation, claiming that his opposition to mandatory DEI training constituted protected activity under Title VII.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, for two reasons.
First, because Vavra never attended the training, he could not hold an objectively reasonable belief that it violated Title VII. He instead based his opposition on pure speculation and conjecture.
Second, there was no evidence of any causal connection between any alleged protected activity and Vavra's termination. Honeywell terminated him, the court found, because he refused to comply with the training requirement despite Honeywell's earnest and repeated attempts to obtain that compliance.
In other words, as an employee, you may not agree with the training your employer requires you to attend. But guess what? They're the employer, not you. Their money, their rules. Not following them is called insubordination, a fireable offense any way you look at it. As an employee, you have two choices: do the training or find a new job. What you can't do is call their bluff, dare them to fire you, and then sue when that's exactly what they do.