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Yes. However, none of those laws prevent you from firing someone who is creating a hostile work environment for your other employees.

weberc2 9y ago
"We didn't fire him for being black, we fired him because his skin created a hostile work environment for his racist coworkers".
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  “Hostile work environment” is a legal term of art in employment anti-discrimination law; it only applies when the hostility is a mechanism of discrimination against protected class, which “racists”, as such, are not.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    That's my point. Nor are "people who are offended by challenges to their political beliefs". Ostensibly his crime was "creating a hostile work environment for women and minorities", but this is clearly not defensible to anyone who read his post. He was fired for challenging (an anti-white, anti-male, anti-conservative) political orthodoxy, and that's illegal in California.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Ostensibly his crime To my knowledge, Damore has not been accused of any crime. > was "creating a hostile work environment for women and minorities", No, only an employer can do that. Damore might have engaged in actions in the workplace that, in context, made it an unacceptable risk that by continuing to employ him Google would risk creating a hostile work environment for women and/or other protected classes. > He was fired for challenging (an anti-white, anti-male, anti-conservative) political orthodoxy, and that's illegal in California. Advocating change to corporate, rather than public, policy does not seem to be even remotely “political activity”, which is what California law actually protects, not that the California law would be valid if and to the extent it required corporations to undertake actions prohibited by federal law.
      - weberc2 9y ago
        > To my knowledge, Damore has not been accused of any crime. It's a figure of speech; I wasn't referring to a legal crime. > No, only an employer can do that. Damore might have engaged in actions in the workplace that, in context, made it an unacceptable risk that by continuing to employ him Google would risk creating a hostile work environment for women and/or other protected classes. I agree. I'm just trying to make sense of the parent's claim that Damore's behavior constitutes a "hostile work environment". > Advocating change to corporate, rather than public, policy does not seem to be even remotely “political activity”, which is what California law actually protects. My argument is that Google made inferences about his public policy beliefs based on his "memo", and fired him for those inferences. In other words, they inferred that he was conservative, and fired him because they felt his conservatism was too much a threat. Whether or not his speech is protected under California law is up to the courts. Never mind that firing someone for innocuous (if misguided) corporate policy improvements is still morally indefensible.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > My argument is that Google made inferences about his public policy beliefs based on his "memo", and fired him for those inferences. Well, it's your assertion. I don't see an argument supporting it.
        weberc2 9y ago
        There is more than one way to use the term. Anyway, your last three responses have been gratuitously pedantic. I'm not interested in debating formal definitions, so I'll be ducking out. EDIT: Removed snarkiness.
        dang 9y ago
        You've been breaking the site guidelines badly, such as in this comment and in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16060531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16060531. If you continue to do this we will ban you. Please read the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this.

weberc2 9y ago

"We didn't fire him for being black, we fired him because his skin created a hostile work environment for his racist coworkers".

dragonwriter 9y ago
“Hostile work environment” is a legal term of art in employment anti-discrimination law; it only applies when the hostility is a mechanism of discrimination against protected class, which “racists”, as such, are not.
- weberc2 9y ago
  That's my point. Nor are "people who are offended by challenges to their political beliefs". Ostensibly his crime was "creating a hostile work environment for women and minorities", but this is clearly not defensible to anyone who read his post. He was fired for challenging (an anti-white, anti-male, anti-conservative) political orthodoxy, and that's illegal in California.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Ostensibly his crime To my knowledge, Damore has not been accused of any crime. > was "creating a hostile work environment for women and minorities", No, only an employer can do that. Damore might have engaged in actions in the workplace that, in context, made it an unacceptable risk that by continuing to employ him Google would risk creating a hostile work environment for women and/or other protected classes. > He was fired for challenging (an anti-white, anti-male, anti-conservative) political orthodoxy, and that's illegal in California. Advocating change to corporate, rather than public, policy does not seem to be even remotely “political activity”, which is what California law actually protects, not that the California law would be valid if and to the extent it required corporations to undertake actions prohibited by federal law.
    - weberc2 9y ago
      > To my knowledge, Damore has not been accused of any crime. It's a figure of speech; I wasn't referring to a legal crime. > No, only an employer can do that. Damore might have engaged in actions in the workplace that, in context, made it an unacceptable risk that by continuing to employ him Google would risk creating a hostile work environment for women and/or other protected classes. I agree. I'm just trying to make sense of the parent's claim that Damore's behavior constitutes a "hostile work environment". > Advocating change to corporate, rather than public, policy does not seem to be even remotely “political activity”, which is what California law actually protects. My argument is that Google made inferences about his public policy beliefs based on his "memo", and fired him for those inferences. In other words, they inferred that he was conservative, and fired him because they felt his conservatism was too much a threat. Whether or not his speech is protected under California law is up to the courts. Never mind that firing someone for innocuous (if misguided) corporate policy improvements is still morally indefensible.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > My argument is that Google made inferences about his public policy beliefs based on his "memo", and fired him for those inferences. Well, it's your assertion. I don't see an argument supporting it.
        weberc2 9y ago
        There is more than one way to use the term. Anyway, your last three responses have been gratuitously pedantic. I'm not interested in debating formal definitions, so I'll be ducking out. EDIT: Removed snarkiness.
        dang 9y ago
        You've been breaking the site guidelines badly, such as in this comment and in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16060531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16060531. If you continue to do this we will ban you. Please read the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this.