I don’t think the interns wanted to change company rules - just rules as they apply to themselves.
Part of their mistake is to think rules may not apply to them, while simultaneously thinking they’ll
While it was dumb, I don’t think the punishment is appropriate. The interns’ manager should have been clear.
On the other hand, I don’t think this is legit. The reaction meant to elicit is: 'these entitled snowflakes from the safe space/protest generation are unable to function in the real world '. The story’s a bit too much and doesn’t make a lot of sense from a real world perspective.
How is a memo less egregious than a petition?