If the author said "...fired a software engineer for writing a memo that questioned the company's gender diversity policies" full stop, I wouldn't have criticiz

If the author said "...fired a software engineer for writing a memo that questioned the company's gender diversity policies" full stop, I wouldn't have criticized the NYT here. But what was written was not what the memo said. And Damore has been insistent that it wasn't his intention to say anything of the sort. It's what people have inferred about the memo, and the NYT author could have easily written "and made statements that can be fairly inferred to question female suitability for technical jobs". Or something pithier along those lines (I'm not a contributor to the Times).