Of course they can defend themselves in public. Corporations engage PR firms to manage that expertly for them all the time. And ironically, whether this goes to trial or not, the worse the objective case for Github the more confident you can be that their lawyers will be telling them to say little or nothing. Expect a very bland statement to appear shortly about how much they love and value their female employees. We may well also have statements from other female employees about how happy they are at Github - these may well be given 'off the record' without attribution as in "A female employee who did not want to be identified told me she has never been happier than she is at Github, surrounded as she is by sensitive colleagues and a supportive management." :)

Haha. It happened already. http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526574/github-sexism-scan... "Several female GitHub employees, who spoke with The Verge on condition of anonymity, said they’ve never felt gender discrimination at the company. "I don’t feel isolated or alone," one female developer says. "I have never personally experienced anything like that and I’ve never witnessed it.""

(aka: why are there sockpuppets in here defending github?)

I am favorably impressed by the statement recently issued by Github.