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Prof. of employment law: 'it may be illegal for Google to punish that engineer'

116 points by kushti 9y ago

mpweiher 9y ago
In Germany it sure as hell would be. And since they appear to have used the willful misrepresentation of what he wrote as the reason, at least publicly, it might even be illegal in the good-ole no-worker-protections-for-U-S-A.
- gizmo686 9y ago
  >And since they appear to have used the willful misrepresentation of what he wrote as the reason. Wouldn't this help Google's case. Employers are allowed to fire at will employees for any reason, or no reason, except for specific reasons specified in law. As far as I am aware, there is no law against fire an employee for being publicly accused of engaging in political speech (or whatever other behaviour Google wants to cite). The laws are only speak to fireing in retaliation for actual conduct. Of course, this might be one of those cases where the courts take a more holistic look and determine that the laws also protects employees accused of the behaviours, regardless of if they engaged in them. Also, while the memo was misrepresented, the misrepresentation is not so egregious as to make this a slamdunk arguement in this case, even if it were an accepted legal theory in general.
  - mpweiher 9y ago
    Good points. My thinking was that they specifically said CoC violations and then used misrepresentations of his writings (writings that were, AFAIK, specifically encouraged) to justify those CoC violations. Had they just said "I no longer like your nose", that would probably have been safer, but of course not effective PR and I am pretty certain that getting rid of him was a pure PR exercise. Heck, they might even have given him some hush money in order for that not to happen. And yes, this is all mostly uninformed speculation :-)
erentz 9y ago
I am almost certain that they gave this guy a termination agreement in which he agreed not to sue Google, and in return would be given a massive golden parachute. Google felt they needed him gone for business reasons. But of course they had no legitimate reason to fire him and he could sue if they did. If that's not the case, expect a lawsuit from him shortly.
- johan_larson 9y ago
  If he is, as the following article says, "considering legal options," then he wasn't given an exit package. Or I suppose he could have been offered one but turned it down. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/08/google-employee-fired-diversity-row-considers-legal-action-james-damore https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/08/google-em...
  - erentz 9y ago
    Oh, wow in that case if I were him I'd probably sue. This termination will sadly haunt him and he will miss out on many job opportunities because of it. Even if you disagree with what he wrote, that's a huge price to pay for trying to have a discussion around making his workplace better and what he perceives fairer.
    - HelloMcFly 9y ago
      This case isn't cut-and-dry. Much of that memo I disagreed with but generally found innocuous. However, there were notable aspects of that memo that could be argued to have created a hostile work environment for different groups were they to be forced to work with or for that engineer. It's clear that, in aggregate, he believes certain groups naturally more "fit" for the work. Now, if you're a woman who has to work with or for him, what do you feel? You likely feel that your capability is more in question, that you have to prove yourself more than the men on the team, and that this person you work next to (or for) starts out with an assumption that you're less capable. Comments and behaviors that make a protected class feel like that, even if made as "jokes" or "facilitators of open dialogue", are not permissible. It's not a cut-and-dry case. I wouldn't bet on a lawsuit either way, excepting the fact that Google's lawyers are probably the better lawyers in a legal tussle.
mywittyname 9y ago
I'm surprised they didn't just move him to a worthless team and let him languish until he moved on. Perhaps generating training data for AI-based toilet scrubbing robots.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  You see the lose-lose situation they're in? The SJW are demanding his head on a pike, yet Google knew that if he sued he'd probably win. In the end they washed their hands of him.
  - drewrv 9y ago
    They'd rather deal with one lawsuit from him than the hundreds from every person who has ever worked with him that isn't a white male.
    - johan_larson 9y ago
      Well now, there's a reason to hire folks like me. "Dude, I'm an able-bodied middle-aged cis het white man. If you ever get tired of me, you can just show me the door. I've got no recourse. Legally speaking, this is as safe as it gets."
      - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
        And if they fire you then their diversity quota actually improves.
        johan_larson 9y ago
        See? See? Staying or going, I'm an asset to the company.
  - MistahKoala 9y ago
    Surely firing him and dealing with the lawsuit is far less expensive than having to deal with the fall-out from SJWs? This seems like it's primarily a business decision rather than one based on keeping within the law or not doing evil.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
I can't help but agree with almost everything he said about general traits in men. They seek esteem over most everything else, and are competitive by nature. And that explains at least part of the reason they're drawn to leadership positions in companies. Of course I'm not going to get fired for saying that publicly.
- drewrv 9y ago
  If men are more naturally drawn to leadership positions, but not actually better leaders, diversity efforts make a lot of sense. In such a scenario you would want to actively encourage women to seek status and lead.
  - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
    I completely agree, or make leadership positions less desirable for men. The essay actually touches on these points.
- DonaldPShimoda 9y ago
  Is it not possible that men are more competitive and seek leadership positions because most leadership positions are already held by men? Looking upwards and seeing people like yourself would be encouraging — it says "You can do this!" Modern society has built an image of men becoming successful, and so in a self-fulfilling prophecy the society's leadership positions are dominated by men who were told they would end up there. I don't think there is a natural (i.e. biological) imperative that drives men and women significantly differently in this regard. It seems to me to be primarily caused by societal expectations which are enforced starting from a young age.
  - Frondo 9y ago
    Yep, the idea there is that representation matters. After Obama was elected, there was a whole spate of articles quoting young Black children, saying, "if he can do it, I can do it." A new world of possibility opened up to them, just because someone had done it. When one of those recent Star Wars movies came out (I haven't seen any of them, so I might get the details wrong), and one of the leads was a Latino guy, I saw a few interviews with Latinx fans basically saying the same thing--"now I can see myself as the hero of the story". Representation matters.
tim333 9y ago
"We’re told by senior leadership that what we’re doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without evidence this is just veiled left ideology that can irreparably harm Google." Seems to me that publishing a "manifesto" in a company saying the senior leadership are bozos is a reasonable grounds for firing.
- drewrv 9y ago
  Seriously! I have strong opinions about the role of women in our industry and society, as does pretty much everyone. But ignore the gender/culture argument and replace diversity with "Foo". The stated goal of the organization is to increase Foo, from top to bottom, from HR to engineering. What do you think will happen if you publish a letter saying Foo is overrated? What will happen if you make getting Foo harder for them? What will happen if you semi-publicly argue against increasing Foo?
  - Cookingboy 9y ago
    Actually that's not what the author of the memo advocated. He did not say Foo was overrated, he said he supports Foo, but he questions the effectiveness of the current company methodology in increasing Foo. He thinks there are other root causes for why Foo is not as high as they want, and he proposed other ways to increase Foo. He was doing a good job by all means, but then people categorized his point of view as anti-Foo when he was simply against the current ways of increasing Foo.
    - meowface 9y ago
      Exactly: "pro-diversity" is not necessarily incompatible with "maybe we should reconsider affirmative action-esque initiatives". I disagree with many things in the document, but, by all accounts, the employee had no issues with a diverse workplace. I think the case he was trying to make is that maybe the lack of representation of women in programming and similar fields can't entirely be explained by sexism or discrimination or bias, and that if it's true that women are on average less interested in things like programming, then it doesn't necessarily make sense to make a commitment to, say, "double the amount of women we hire this year" (not a real example; just hypothetical). The pool for women interested in the job may just be lower in numbers even when controlling for all social and cultural factors. Of course, the science on that is still far from conclusive (and many of the "scientific" facts he cited sound dubious), and this absolutely can't be extrapolated to suggest that female programmers who do work at Google or other companies are less interested or are somehow less competent. I don't think the author tried to make that claim at all, nor did he suggest that sexism and bias wasn't an issue contributing to the gender gap or an issue that shouldn't be stamped out, but a lot of people (and the media) seemed to draw those conclusions after reading the document.
alexwebb2 9y ago
I don't really understand how firing him is controversial. He wrote a pathetic, juvenile manifesto that served only to reinforce and perpetuate gender stereotypes. To me, that absolutely falls under the umbrella of "creating a hostile work environment". He'd be a major liability if they _didn't_ fire him. Companies are under no obligation to allow their employees to distribute their own ill-conceived manifestos that slam the company for its policies and promote a sexist view of the world. That's insane.
- Cookingboy 9y ago
  How was the memo pathetic or juvenile? He sourced all of his claims and himself has a Ph.D in Biology. What gender stereotypes did he perpetuate? In fact he specifically called against stereotypes. It sounds like you didn't read the memo at all and only bought in coverage by fake news sites like Gizmodo. Yes, the term Fake News actually applies here.
  - alexwebb2 9y ago
    I did read the memo. It was extremely juvenile, and reminded me of the racist drivel that gets pushed on Facebook. Mixed into the stats he cites is a whole lot of hand waving and unsound conclusions, and it's clearly meant to push a sexist viewpoint.
    - Cookingboy 9y ago
      Ok, can you be more specific about which parts you find to be racist or juvenile? I have read the memo as well and I have found it to be civil and well written and did not see anywhere it pushed for some kind of sexist discriminatory agenda. Where do you think he did hand waving? Which conclusions of his do you think was unsound? Which particular statements of his you think was clearly meant to push a sexist viewpoint?
    - xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
      And your vague replies are meant to paint him in a corner and shut down all discourse on this subject. So...
pkilgore 9y ago
He's a professor of law...at a business school. I'd try to evaluate the strength of his legal argument, but he does not cite...anything. My guess: He's trolling for clients.
- rocky1138 9y ago
  You may have read the version, widely circulated, with the citations stripped out. The original includes citations.
  - pkilgore 9y ago
    Could you point me to that?
    - milcron 9y ago
      Most of the "citations" are inline links to Wikipedia. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
      - pkilgore 9y ago
        Thanks, but I've read and written about that idiot's manifesto too many times to count at this point. I'm looking for citations for the lawyers' analysis of employment law violations here.
Caveman_Coder 9y ago
If you're conservative at Google and tired of getting muzzled and want to help his case you could do the following: 1. Go to Memegen 2. Find a meme made by a liberal (check around the time Trump was elected) that is denigrating or demeaning towards conservatives 3. Leak the photos and ask Google to fire them for their "harassing" views 4. If they don't, they are selectively enforcing their own "rules" 5. Point out their hypocrisy
- grizzles 9y ago
  What if they did that stuff on their own time, do they still deserve to be fired? Because he didn't.
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    Okay...so he did it on company time...I can tell you most of the memes on Memegen were probably made on company time...so let's say they were made on company time, in the spirit of fairness and reciprocity, should the anti-conservative post authors be fired as well? They might have made a lot of conservatives uncomfortable and feel like they were being harassed.
tiredwired 9y ago
Seems like they should punish the leaker just as harshly has the engineer.
- nikdaheratik 9y ago
  Why? I don't think it's likely that the engineer's essay of nonsense was part of the company's next world beating invention, which means publishing it isn't part of any NDAs.
  - pyroinferno 9y ago
    Because it led too mass-hysteria and a crap load of negative press from both liberals and conservatives. Why would you want to have someone who would sink the company to get someone that they don't agree with fired as an employee?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
yladiz 9y ago
I'd be surprised if there was a lawsuit. It's really easy to argue that this memo is disruptive to the workplace and Google had grounds to fire him. You can have 5 reasons that are illegal to fire someone and 1 reason that is legal and you can just justify it with that one reason.
- therebedragons 9y ago
  I'd be surprised if there wasNT a lawsuit. I'm not American - but what's the risk to the sacked dude? He sues, loses, and then what? He sues, wins, how much? What do lawyers cost? Solve for the equilibrium. I think the risk (professional death?) is not relevant (as I doubt he gets a job at any equally leftist SV workplace), he doesn't seem terribly charismatic (see Jordan Peterson interview) so he won't be a public star that makes money off his ideas, and Google has deep pockets and a deeper desire to avoid any more publicity about ANY of this. Sue, settle for 7 figures, sign an NDA agreeing to go quietly into the night, go back to Harvard and study more Biology/whatever interests him.
wolfgangK 9y ago
I hope that he also sues media outlets for slander. To sum things up : - fairness & lack of prejudice wrt minorities/women : goal - minorities/women % in the workforce : metric - diversity hiring : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox . - without diversity hiring, differences in women vs men applicants pools, which can be explained by differences in *distributions* of interests, have no impact on distribution of skills in the workforce - women are talented enough so that they just need to be *attracted* (e.g. better work/life balance) rather than pity-hired This is my takeaway from the "screed". How could it be framed as «anti-diversity», much less «alt-right» ? How could saying that «women are, on average more people-oriented and men are more thing-oriented» be framed as «women are inferior, biologically incapable of coding» ? I hope that people get punished for such a dishonest character assassination !
- dlss 9y ago
  The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows: You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. - Michael Crichton
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
  I just finished reading it. I agree with some of the points, particularly: "Don't alienate conservatives." I consider myself left leaning. But if we are going to talk about tolerance and acceptance, then you have to attempt to do that across the board. The entire manifesto seems like a first draft. I don't think presenting gender differences as biologically based was even necessary to support his main points. Even if on average genders exhibit different preferences, I'm still on the fence as to why. And I can't tell which part was so offensive that people had to take time off and this guy needed to be fired.
dandare 9y ago
The saddest thing for me is that this will add tons of ammunition to all kinds of sexists, racists and extremists. Damore made several well sourced arguments that you are welcome to disagree with. But instead of discussion, counter arguments and "embracing diversity" he was silenced and probably illegally sacked. This will strengthen the position of all kind of haters and populists and if you think it's not a big deal go and check who is your president.
matt_s 9y ago
Part of his case may be the details of who he sent this manifesto to. If it went 'viral' inside of Google, is that his fault?

116 points by kushti 9y ago

In Germany it sure as hell would be. And since they appear to have used the willful misrepresentation of what he wrote as the reason, at least publicly, it might even be illegal in the good-ole no-worker-protections-for-U-S-A.

gizmo686 9y ago
>And since they appear to have used the willful misrepresentation of what he wrote as the reason. Wouldn't this help Google's case. Employers are allowed to fire at will employees for any reason, or no reason, except for specific reasons specified in law. As far as I am aware, there is no law against fire an employee for being publicly accused of engaging in political speech (or whatever other behaviour Google wants to cite). The laws are only speak to fireing in retaliation for actual conduct. Of course, this might be one of those cases where the courts take a more holistic look and determine that the laws also protects employees accused of the behaviours, regardless of if they engaged in them. Also, while the memo was misrepresented, the misrepresentation is not so egregious as to make this a slamdunk arguement in this case, even if it were an accepted legal theory in general.
- mpweiher 9y ago
  Good points. My thinking was that they specifically said CoC violations and then used misrepresentations of his writings (writings that were, AFAIK, specifically encouraged) to justify those CoC violations. Had they just said "I no longer like your nose", that would probably have been safer, but of course not effective PR and I am pretty certain that getting rid of him was a pure PR exercise. Heck, they might even have given him some hush money in order for that not to happen. And yes, this is all mostly uninformed speculation :-)

erentz 9y ago

I am almost certain that they gave this guy a termination agreement in which he agreed not to sue Google, and in return would be given a massive golden parachute. Google felt they needed him gone for business reasons. But of course they had no legitimate reason to fire him and he could sue if they did. If that's not the case, expect a lawsuit from him shortly.

johan_larson 9y ago
If he is, as the following article says, "considering legal options," then he wasn't given an exit package. Or I suppose he could have been offered one but turned it down. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/08/google-employee-fired-diversity-row-considers-legal-action-james-damore https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/08/google-em...
- erentz 9y ago
  Oh, wow in that case if I were him I'd probably sue. This termination will sadly haunt him and he will miss out on many job opportunities because of it. Even if you disagree with what he wrote, that's a huge price to pay for trying to have a discussion around making his workplace better and what he perceives fairer.
  - HelloMcFly 9y ago
    This case isn't cut-and-dry. Much of that memo I disagreed with but generally found innocuous. However, there were notable aspects of that memo that could be argued to have created a hostile work environment for different groups were they to be forced to work with or for that engineer. It's clear that, in aggregate, he believes certain groups naturally more "fit" for the work. Now, if you're a woman who has to work with or for him, what do you feel? You likely feel that your capability is more in question, that you have to prove yourself more than the men on the team, and that this person you work next to (or for) starts out with an assumption that you're less capable. Comments and behaviors that make a protected class feel like that, even if made as "jokes" or "facilitators of open dialogue", are not permissible. It's not a cut-and-dry case. I wouldn't bet on a lawsuit either way, excepting the fact that Google's lawyers are probably the better lawyers in a legal tussle.

mywittyname 9y ago

I'm surprised they didn't just move him to a worthless team and let him languish until he moved on. Perhaps generating training data for AI-based toilet scrubbing robots.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago
You see the lose-lose situation they're in? The SJW are demanding his head on a pike, yet Google knew that if he sued he'd probably win. In the end they washed their hands of him.
- drewrv 9y ago
  They'd rather deal with one lawsuit from him than the hundreds from every person who has ever worked with him that isn't a white male.
  - johan_larson 9y ago
    Well now, there's a reason to hire folks like me. "Dude, I'm an able-bodied middle-aged cis het white man. If you ever get tired of me, you can just show me the door. I've got no recourse. Legally speaking, this is as safe as it gets."
    - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
      And if they fire you then their diversity quota actually improves.
      - johan_larson 9y ago
        See? See? Staying or going, I'm an asset to the company.
- MistahKoala 9y ago
  Surely firing him and dealing with the lawsuit is far less expensive than having to deal with the fall-out from SJWs? This seems like it's primarily a business decision rather than one based on keeping within the law or not doing evil.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

I can't help but agree with almost everything he said about general traits in men. They seek esteem over most everything else, and are competitive by nature. And that explains at least part of the reason they're drawn to leadership positions in companies. Of course I'm not going to get fired for saying that publicly.

drewrv 9y ago
If men are more naturally drawn to leadership positions, but not actually better leaders, diversity efforts make a lot of sense. In such a scenario you would want to actively encourage women to seek status and lead.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  I completely agree, or make leadership positions less desirable for men. The essay actually touches on these points.
DonaldPShimoda 9y ago
Is it not possible that men are more competitive and seek leadership positions because most leadership positions are already held by men? Looking upwards and seeing people like yourself would be encouraging — it says "You can do this!" Modern society has built an image of men becoming successful, and so in a self-fulfilling prophecy the society's leadership positions are dominated by men who were told they would end up there. I don't think there is a natural (i.e. biological) imperative that drives men and women significantly differently in this regard. It seems to me to be primarily caused by societal expectations which are enforced starting from a young age.
- Frondo 9y ago
  Yep, the idea there is that representation matters. After Obama was elected, there was a whole spate of articles quoting young Black children, saying, "if he can do it, I can do it." A new world of possibility opened up to them, just because someone had done it. When one of those recent Star Wars movies came out (I haven't seen any of them, so I might get the details wrong), and one of the leads was a Latino guy, I saw a few interviews with Latinx fans basically saying the same thing--"now I can see myself as the hero of the story". Representation matters.

tim333 9y ago

"We’re told by senior leadership that what we’re doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without evidence this is just veiled left ideology that can irreparably harm Google." Seems to me that publishing a "manifesto" in a company saying the senior leadership are bozos is a reasonable grounds for firing.

drewrv 9y ago
Seriously! I have strong opinions about the role of women in our industry and society, as does pretty much everyone. But ignore the gender/culture argument and replace diversity with "Foo". The stated goal of the organization is to increase Foo, from top to bottom, from HR to engineering. What do you think will happen if you publish a letter saying Foo is overrated? What will happen if you make getting Foo harder for them? What will happen if you semi-publicly argue against increasing Foo?
- Cookingboy 9y ago
  Actually that's not what the author of the memo advocated. He did not say Foo was overrated, he said he supports Foo, but he questions the effectiveness of the current company methodology in increasing Foo. He thinks there are other root causes for why Foo is not as high as they want, and he proposed other ways to increase Foo. He was doing a good job by all means, but then people categorized his point of view as anti-Foo when he was simply against the current ways of increasing Foo.
  - meowface 9y ago
    Exactly: "pro-diversity" is not necessarily incompatible with "maybe we should reconsider affirmative action-esque initiatives". I disagree with many things in the document, but, by all accounts, the employee had no issues with a diverse workplace. I think the case he was trying to make is that maybe the lack of representation of women in programming and similar fields can't entirely be explained by sexism or discrimination or bias, and that if it's true that women are on average less interested in things like programming, then it doesn't necessarily make sense to make a commitment to, say, "double the amount of women we hire this year" (not a real example; just hypothetical). The pool for women interested in the job may just be lower in numbers even when controlling for all social and cultural factors. Of course, the science on that is still far from conclusive (and many of the "scientific" facts he cited sound dubious), and this absolutely can't be extrapolated to suggest that female programmers who do work at Google or other companies are less interested or are somehow less competent. I don't think the author tried to make that claim at all, nor did he suggest that sexism and bias wasn't an issue contributing to the gender gap or an issue that shouldn't be stamped out, but a lot of people (and the media) seemed to draw those conclusions after reading the document.

alexwebb2 9y ago

I don't really understand how firing him is controversial. He wrote a pathetic, juvenile manifesto that served only to reinforce and perpetuate gender stereotypes. To me, that absolutely falls under the umbrella of "creating a hostile work environment". He'd be a major liability if they _didn't_ fire him. Companies are under no obligation to allow their employees to distribute their own ill-conceived manifestos that slam the company for its policies and promote a sexist view of the world. That's insane.

Cookingboy 9y ago
How was the memo pathetic or juvenile? He sourced all of his claims and himself has a Ph.D in Biology. What gender stereotypes did he perpetuate? In fact he specifically called against stereotypes. It sounds like you didn't read the memo at all and only bought in coverage by fake news sites like Gizmodo. Yes, the term Fake News actually applies here.
- alexwebb2 9y ago
  I did read the memo. It was extremely juvenile, and reminded me of the racist drivel that gets pushed on Facebook. Mixed into the stats he cites is a whole lot of hand waving and unsound conclusions, and it's clearly meant to push a sexist viewpoint.
  - Cookingboy 9y ago
    Ok, can you be more specific about which parts you find to be racist or juvenile? I have read the memo as well and I have found it to be civil and well written and did not see anywhere it pushed for some kind of sexist discriminatory agenda. Where do you think he did hand waving? Which conclusions of his do you think was unsound? Which particular statements of his you think was clearly meant to push a sexist viewpoint?
  - xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
    And your vague replies are meant to paint him in a corner and shut down all discourse on this subject. So...

pkilgore 9y ago

He's a professor of law...at a business school. I'd try to evaluate the strength of his legal argument, but he does not cite...anything. My guess: He's trolling for clients.

rocky1138 9y ago
You may have read the version, widely circulated, with the citations stripped out. The original includes citations.
- pkilgore 9y ago
  Could you point me to that?
  - milcron 9y ago
    Most of the "citations" are inline links to Wikipedia. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
    - pkilgore 9y ago
      Thanks, but I've read and written about that idiot's manifesto too many times to count at this point. I'm looking for citations for the lawyers' analysis of employment law violations here.

Caveman_Coder 9y ago

If you're conservative at Google and tired of getting muzzled and want to help his case you could do the following: 1. Go to Memegen 2. Find a meme made by a liberal (check around the time Trump was elected) that is denigrating or demeaning towards conservatives 3. Leak the photos and ask Google to fire them for their "harassing" views 4. If they don't, they are selectively enforcing their own "rules" 5. Point out their hypocrisy

grizzles 9y ago
What if they did that stuff on their own time, do they still deserve to be fired? Because he didn't.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  Okay...so he did it on company time...I can tell you most of the memes on Memegen were probably made on company time...so let's say they were made on company time, in the spirit of fairness and reciprocity, should the anti-conservative post authors be fired as well? They might have made a lot of conservatives uncomfortable and feel like they were being harassed.

tiredwired 9y ago

Seems like they should punish the leaker just as harshly has the engineer.

nikdaheratik 9y ago
Why? I don't think it's likely that the engineer's essay of nonsense was part of the company's next world beating invention, which means publishing it isn't part of any NDAs.
- pyroinferno 9y ago
  Because it led too mass-hysteria and a crap load of negative press from both liberals and conservatives. Why would you want to have someone who would sink the company to get someone that they don't agree with fired as an employee?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

yladiz 9y ago

I'd be surprised if there was a lawsuit. It's really easy to argue that this memo is disruptive to the workplace and Google had grounds to fire him. You can have 5 reasons that are illegal to fire someone and 1 reason that is legal and you can just justify it with that one reason.

therebedragons 9y ago
I'd be surprised if there wasNT a lawsuit. I'm not American - but what's the risk to the sacked dude? He sues, loses, and then what? He sues, wins, how much? What do lawyers cost? Solve for the equilibrium. I think the risk (professional death?) is not relevant (as I doubt he gets a job at any equally leftist SV workplace), he doesn't seem terribly charismatic (see Jordan Peterson interview) so he won't be a public star that makes money off his ideas, and Google has deep pockets and a deeper desire to avoid any more publicity about ANY of this. Sue, settle for 7 figures, sign an NDA agreeing to go quietly into the night, go back to Harvard and study more Biology/whatever interests him.

wolfgangK 9y ago

I hope that he also sues media outlets for slander. To sum things up : - fairness & lack of prejudice wrt minorities/women : goal - minorities/women % in the workforce : metric - diversity hiring : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox . - without diversity hiring, differences in women vs men applicants pools, which can be explained by differences in *distributions* of interests, have no impact on distribution of skills in the workforce - women are talented enough so that they just need to be *attracted* (e.g. better work/life balance) rather than pity-hired This is my takeaway from the "screed". How could it be framed as «anti-diversity», much less «alt-right» ? How could saying that «women are, on average more people-oriented and men are more thing-oriented» be framed as «women are inferior, biologically incapable of coding» ? I hope that people get punished for such a dishonest character assassination !

dlss 9y ago
The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows: You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. - Michael Crichton
2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
I just finished reading it. I agree with some of the points, particularly: "Don't alienate conservatives." I consider myself left leaning. But if we are going to talk about tolerance and acceptance, then you have to attempt to do that across the board. The entire manifesto seems like a first draft. I don't think presenting gender differences as biologically based was even necessary to support his main points. Even if on average genders exhibit different preferences, I'm still on the fence as to why. And I can't tell which part was so offensive that people had to take time off and this guy needed to be fired.

dandare 9y ago

The saddest thing for me is that this will add tons of ammunition to all kinds of sexists, racists and extremists. Damore made several well sourced arguments that you are welcome to disagree with. But instead of discussion, counter arguments and "embracing diversity" he was silenced and probably illegally sacked. This will strengthen the position of all kind of haters and populists and if you think it's not a big deal go and check who is your president.

matt_s 9y ago

Part of his case may be the details of who he sent this manifesto to. If it went 'viral' inside of Google, is that his fault?