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I suppose he could have ignored the question of the distribution of men and the distribution of women, and just focused on his suggestions on how to make a more

I suppose he could have ignored the question of the distribution of men and the distribution of women, and just focused on his suggestions on how to make a more productive and enjoyable situation for more "agreeable" (that's a technical term) personality types. But this is all in context of Google's focus on trying to improve the gender disparity, and his memo is directly in reference to that, if one would only accept his claims about the different genders' distributions. But merely making these claims is deemed unacceptable. Google can make whatever claims they want, but his hands are tied if he wants to make these suggestions. All of this is basically to imply that a set of beliefs that a lot of people have (conservatives, mainstream psychologists(!!!)) is basically beyond the pale, and it seems like a troubling situation to me. Please let me know if I misunderstood something here.

d1zzy 9y ago
Context matters. The workplace is a place where certain discussions are simply not allowed. For example discussing an ongoing lawsuit against the employer. It's not about intention, your intention may be in the right place, it's about potential outcome, when things are taken out of context or simply interpreted by others in ways that result in creating a hostile work environment (or in the lawsuit case, taken out of context in a court of law).
- orblivion 9y ago
  That seems perfectly reasonable by itself. But there are a couple issues here. Firstly Google as I understand it has pretty open discussion internally. But it turns out the company has a certain progressive standard for what's acceptable to say. Or maybe the law is relevant. Fine. But then they should be honest about it and not claim that people are free to express minority viewpoints (see Pichai's press release). Or assuming they are honest and just naive, snap out of the bubble for a second and realize just how common this supposedly unacceptable viewpoint is, and admit their bias and (again) clearly draw the line. Secondly, as I understand it, the lawsuit or at least part of it was based on a California law specifically prohibiting firing for political view. But apparently certain political views, such as agreeing with mainstream psychologists, don't really count as reasonable political views. To me this is opinion encoded into law and it's disturbing. (For the record I don't support the lawsuit on libertarian grounds. And part of that is that this whole thing is inherently messy)
dragonwriter 9y ago
The beliefs aren't “beyond the pale”; using workplace resources to communicate them within the workplace in contravention to a workplace anti-harassment policy, which if inconsistently enforced poses substantial legal danger for the employer, is, however, not a prohibited grounds for dismissal from at-will employment.
- tptacek 9y ago
  "Workplace anti-harassment policy". That's the term I was looking for. Thanks. A good simple summary of what happened: Your employer can have an EEO-motivated anti-harassment policy. You can organize with coworkers to improve working conditions. If your organization conflicts with the anti-harassment policy, the NLRB is likely to find that the anti-harassment policy trumps your right to organize.

d1zzy 9y ago

Context matters. The workplace is a place where certain discussions are simply not allowed. For example discussing an ongoing lawsuit against the employer. It's not about intention, your intention may be in the right place, it's about potential outcome, when things are taken out of context or simply interpreted by others in ways that result in creating a hostile work environment (or in the lawsuit case, taken out of context in a court of law).

orblivion 9y ago
That seems perfectly reasonable by itself. But there are a couple issues here. Firstly Google as I understand it has pretty open discussion internally. But it turns out the company has a certain progressive standard for what's acceptable to say. Or maybe the law is relevant. Fine. But then they should be honest about it and not claim that people are free to express minority viewpoints (see Pichai's press release). Or assuming they are honest and just naive, snap out of the bubble for a second and realize just how common this supposedly unacceptable viewpoint is, and admit their bias and (again) clearly draw the line. Secondly, as I understand it, the lawsuit or at least part of it was based on a California law specifically prohibiting firing for political view. But apparently certain political views, such as agreeing with mainstream psychologists, don't really count as reasonable political views. To me this is opinion encoded into law and it's disturbing. (For the record I don't support the lawsuit on libertarian grounds. And part of that is that this whole thing is inherently messy)

dragonwriter 9y ago

The beliefs aren't “beyond the pale”; using workplace resources to communicate them within the workplace in contravention to a workplace anti-harassment policy, which if inconsistently enforced poses substantial legal danger for the employer, is, however, not a prohibited grounds for dismissal from at-will employment.

tptacek 9y ago
"Workplace anti-harassment policy". That's the term I was looking for. Thanks. A good simple summary of what happened: Your employer can have an EEO-motivated anti-harassment policy. You can organize with coworkers to improve working conditions. If your organization conflicts with the anti-harassment policy, the NLRB is likely to find that the anti-harassment policy trumps your right to organize.