Target is not an insurance company. Your argument is outside the bounds of the situation.
You have a scale, on one side you have PR, on the other you have the team-member. The scale always tips to the PR side because to a major corporation, the value of PR is much higher than that of a single employee, regardless of the employee.
The cost of replacing an employee is quantifiable - the sunk cost of a terminated employee is essentially the cost to onboard them.
The cost of repairing PR is not inherently quantifiable - this represents a much larger risk.
The risk of negative PR in this situation calls for pre-emptive risk mitigation, and that mitigation is removing the source of the potential risk. It's really that simple.
