Looked like empty attempt to spin up controversy by journalist, when I read the article. But also, how hard would it be to track? How to tell if a resignation is a protest?

@Quinn You're right that it could be hard to know, but maybe not as hard as it seems, for two reasons.

1. People are pinging the journalist, Sharon Goldman, on Twitter about this, so it's possible she's going to try to talk to whoever she spoke to before and could write a follow-up. It's also possible the journalist didn't speak to anyone, but in my experience, they won't do an article entirely unfounded, though they will sometimes go with very flimsy evidence.

2. If people resign in protest, they often will make a statement about it.

If we don't see either of these, the question will not resolve.

@WilliamGunn expanding on 2, if it's difficult to tell whether it was a protest resignation, is it really a protest resignation?

The idea of doing a self-sacraficial moral act and then not telling anyone that's what it was is very strange.

@makoyass Yes, absolutely. However, sometimes there are internal discussions that happen between the expression of intent to resign in protest and actually leaving that lead to people leaving quietly. We're not counting leaving quietly as leaving in protest for the purposes of this question, though we may reconsider if an anomalous number of people all leave at once.