In the spring of 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Jennifer Sey took a hard-line, controversial position: Schools should stay open.

At the time, Sey was chief marketing officer at Levi Strauss & Co., with 21 years at the company. Later in the year, Sey got promoted to Levi's brand president — on a path to potentially become the next CEO. Instead, she has now resigned.

"Ultimately," Sey told NPR, "just about a month ago, the CEO said to me, 'There's just not a path for you here.' You know, 'It's all too much.' "

Jennifer Sey, former brand president for the U.S. clothing company Levi’s, quit her c-suite position and turned down a $1 million payout so she could continue to speak out against certain COVID-19 restrictions.

Sey, a former Olympic gymnast, announced her resignation on Monday in journalist Bari Weiss’ Substack newsletter “Common Sense.” Sey said she was pushed out of her job by the company she had championed over her 23-year career because she refused to stop speaking out against school closures and other COVID-19 policies.

Jennifer Sey was a rising star at Levi Strauss. The former gymnast spent decades working her way up at the jeans company, eventually even being considered a possible candidate to become CEO. Then COVID-19 happened. In a blog post, she wrote that she decided to leave the apparel maker after it pressured her to stop speaking about her opposition to school closures because of the pandemic.