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IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neur

IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. I find this disturbing. I don't know whether Damore's assertions are scientifically accurate, but the NLRB appears to be saying that it doesn't matter. Stating an unpleasant truth would constitute discrimination "notwithstanding scientific references and analysis".

ubernostrum 9y ago
Why is this chilling? There are many much-less-disputed things which are obviously factually true but which, nonetheless, could put you on the hook for harassment depending on how, why, and how often you say them. For example, suppose I have a co-worker who is an ardent believer in the cause of the southern states during the US Civil War. It is factually and indisputably true that the southern states lost that war, and were subjected to a humiliating period of military occupation afterward. If I were to, say, constantly bring it up and rub it in my co-worker's face, my co-worker could certainly go to HR and claim I was committing harassment.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- leereeves 9y ago
  A more accurate analogy might be a memo claiming that southerners are poorer than northerners because they lost the Civil War. Would you consider such a memo harassment?
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Maybe? Most of the challenges on this thread seem to be premised on the idea that Google needs ironclad justification to terminate an employee. The opposite is true. We have, as conservatives vigorously argued for, at-will employment in pretty much the whole country. The NLRA will protect your right to improve workplace conditions. The NLRB will not enforce that right if what you're doing isn't really about workplace conditions, or is about a desire to change those conditions to something that might conflict with your employer's requirements under the law.
    - leereeves 9y ago
      My challenge to the NLRB's opinion is premised on the idea that Google employees have a right to discuss Google's diversity policy. The NLRB seems to agree, repeatedly saying that Damore's memo contained protected speech. But when that discussion brings up unpleasant scientific findings, the NLRB and I diverge; IMO a scientific explanation should not render otherwise protected speech unprotected.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        The issue isn't that the science is unpleasant. It's that state and federal law compel companies like Google to maintain anti-harassment policies, and the NLRB defers to the company on how they're enforced. If you want to complain about Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, that's a different discussion; it's not really fair to take the NLRB to task for that.
        leereeves 9y ago
        The issue is that referring to these scientific results is "harassment" because they are unpleasant.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > The issue is that referring to these scientific results is "harassment" because they are unpleasant. That the manner and context in which Damore referred to them is a violation of Google's reasonable anti-harassment policy does not mean that either that act, and even less referring to them more generally, is harassment. Necessarily, any anti-harasssment policy that will successfully prevent harassment liability seeks to, through means up to and including termination, prevent liability by dealing with acts before they reach the level at which legal harassment—a violation of the law by the employer—occurs. An anti-harassment policy that only addressed acts after the threshold for legal harassment was reached would be a very expensive failure.
      - jxdxbx 9y ago
        Google employees do not have a right to discuss Google’s diversity policy. That does not fall within the “improving workplace conditions” exception. Google is within its rights to simply fire all conservatives if it wants to. I think labor law should be different, but it’s not.
  - taneq 9y ago
    Also this memo would be in the context of an official company policy of preferentially hiring southerners despite them making up a small portion of the applicant pool.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    None of the groups involved being a protected class under Title VII, and harassment being a means of discrimination against such a class, no, it wouldn't be harassment in the relevant legal sense, and would probably not be within the scope of an anti-harassment policy.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  Why is this chilling? Because he wasn't actually saying anything particularly bad. Instead, he was terminated on the emotional reaction to what others imputed he was saying. This reveals a breathtaking level of authoritarian ideological adherence within Google.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    Because he wasn't actually saying anything particularly bad. Careful there. What you mean is he wasn't saying anything you personally consider particularly bad. This is not the same thing as "objectively not bad". This is not the same thing as "something no reasonable person could object to". And jumping from your personal opinion that it wasn't bad straight to "a breathtaking level of authoritarian ideological adherence" is, well, quite a leap. Finally: he was terminated on the emotional reaction to what others imputed he was saying The issue with the original "diversity memo" was that there was absolutely no way to read it with the principle of charity in mind and also end up with the interpretation of it his supporters wanted (in order to support the "he didn't say that" narrative). So much of the "he didn't really say that" boils down to ambiguity in the text, but if we assume he had some purpose in mind that he thought was important, and that he was making what he believed was a rational evidence-based argument, and then try to figure out "what important thing is he arguing in support of here", well, there aren't a lot of possible conclusions to end up at.
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      This is not the same thing as "objectively not bad". Anything that requires an imputational and emotional interpretation (which can't be supported by particular facts) to be "bad" is "objectively not bad." if we assume he had some purpose in mind that he thought was important Here, you're basically admitting that the reading required to support your position is an imputational and emotional interpretation which can't be supported by particular facts. then try to figure out "what important thing is he arguing in support of here", well, there aren't a lot of possible conclusions to end up at. There are lots of possible alternative conclusions. Here's one: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16398682 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16398682 (Overwhelming persistent effects of human cultural capital.) It's entirely possible that a best-effort fair society with perfect equality of opportunity would still result in other than a 50-50 distribution in a given field for any number of complex, ever changing reasons, in much the same way that it would be impossible to have a vast liquid ocean with no waves. Or are you effectively making the questioning the validity of "equality of outcome" a thought-crime in and of itself? There are plenty of reasons to question "equality of outcome" without ever having to invoke the superiority of anyone.
tptacek 9y ago
It doesn't matter not because the NLRB is settling the science for itself, but because the NLRB doesn't want to intervene in cases where employers enforce anti-harassment policies. There's a case history about this, cited in the memo. Remember, the presumption at law is that Google has the right to fire employees for virtually no reason (conservatives should find this congenial). Damore was attempting to avail himself of an exception to that rule.
- leereeves 9y ago
  You're right, the NLRB isn't settling the science. It's saying that discussion of the science renders otherwise protected speech unprotected ("so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected"), and effectively removing workers' legal right to engage in science-based discussion of whether a 50/50 gender ratio is the appropriate goal.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    You don't have a legal right to engage in science-based discussion of anything at your workplace! Damore's claim is subtly different. He relies on the fact that you do, under the NLRA, have the right to organize to change workplace conditions. But your right to do that is enforceable only through the NLRB, is an exception to at-will employment, and is trumped by federal and state EEO laws. When employee organizing conflicts with employer legal compliance, the employer's low burden to justify a termination is even lower.
    - leereeves 9y ago
      If we have a legal right to discuss something at work, we should also have a legal right to a science-based discussion of that topic. The Advice Memo seems to agree that discussion of Google's diversity program was protected speech, until it strayed into scientific findings that some people found offensive.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        I think you're still not getting it. You don't have the legal right to discuss things at work without termination. Blanket federal employment law says that there is a powerful presumption in favor of the employer when terminating employees. They can fire you for what you say. They can fire you for dying your hair the wrong hair color. They don't need a good reason. You need a good reason if you're going to contest a termination.
stcredzero 9y ago
> > were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. > I find this disturbing. I find this very disturbing as well. The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, face-value reading of the memo and impute motivations to him. So basically, any employee commentary on an employer's policies with regards to the EEO's goals can be held to be "discriminatory" and "harassment" because it "sounds bad" and "sounds like" it's against EEO's goals, even if that can't be demonstrated on a factual basis. You will fall in line, and you don't even dare sound like you're secretly against us. How is that not "thought-crime?"
- tptacek 9y ago
  You can call it that if you want; then, in the US, you can be fired for "thought crime". The only thing at issue here is that you can't be fired in retaliation for workplace organizing --- but that protection doesn't apply if what you're organizing about pertains to an area where the NLRB gives deference to employers. There's a case history in the Advice Memo. They didn't make this up just for Google.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    that protection doesn't apply if what you're organizing about pertains to an area where the NLRB gives deference to employers. Those precedents exist to prevent employees from organizing active resistance to the NLRB's goals. If you read Damore's memo at face value, he's proposing modifying the way in which Google pursues those goals, taking differences in preferences into account. Strangely enough, Google and YouTube executives have spoken in public and have basically taken James Damore's memo's position and advocated the same kind of action he proposes in the memo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrOp8ewzJDc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrOp8ewzJDc Given the broad power possessed by the NLRB, how can this situation not result in a moral hazard?
    - tptacek 9y ago
conanbatt 9y ago
The great fear around this topic. What would be the consequence if it were scientifically proven that men had a slight biological advantage over women in software engineering? I sense the mob puts a noise layer because the mob has an opinion of what to do in that case that it doesnt want to accept.
- moduspol 9y ago
  > What would be the consequence if it were scientifically proven that men had a slight biological advantage over women in software engineering? They're already hedged against that. They would claim that only means that the software engineering process / profession was designed to cater to masculine traits, and as a result, is sexist. It's yet another tool of the patriarchy. That software engineering has worked out as it has so far isn't indicative of success because we don't have the alternative profession to compare it to. One that puts more value in diversity, empathy, avoiding conflict, and working cooperatively. If only we valued those things more, men wouldn't have such a leg up. That's the fun part of these views: they can't ever be proven wrong. There's always another level of underlying oppression for any perceivable sleight.
spinlock 9y ago
His assertions were bullshit. I thought Google should have fired him for bad science. He wasn't posting the analysis of a study he had done. He wasn't sharing data that he collected and wanted to analyze. He posted his opinions without any evidence backing them up.
- leereeves 9y ago
  His original memo did include references to scientific studies backing up his assertions, but several outside parties distributed the memo without these references.
  - xenadu02 9y ago
    This has been debunked a million times. He did no such thing. The one legit study he cited came to the opposite conclusion he claimed. Putting footnotes in a document doesn’t magically make them scientific research. Please stop repeating this trope.
    - leereeves 9y ago
      Please stop making vapid assertions without evidence. Cite your sources.
Toboe 9y ago
If you want to read it benevolently (benevolent to the NLRB), you could also take it as a claim that his references aren't scientific, but pseudo-scientific[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
The text you quote has scare quotes around "scientific", so it probably means that Damore's opinion was not backed by the science. That doesn't say the NLRB think that science doesn't matter, quite the opposite.
walshemj 9y ago
using the quotes "scientific" is the polite lawyer way of saying its total bolocks

ubernostrum 9y ago

Why is this chilling? There are many much-less-disputed things which are obviously factually true but which, nonetheless, could put you on the hook for harassment depending on how, why, and how often you say them. For example, suppose I have a co-worker who is an ardent believer in the cause of the southern states during the US Civil War. It is factually and indisputably true that the southern states lost that war, and were subjected to a humiliating period of military occupation afterward. If I were to, say, constantly bring it up and rub it in my co-worker's face, my co-worker could certainly go to HR and claim I was committing harassment.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
leereeves 9y ago
A more accurate analogy might be a memo claiming that southerners are poorer than northerners because they lost the Civil War. Would you consider such a memo harassment?
- tptacek 9y ago
  Maybe? Most of the challenges on this thread seem to be premised on the idea that Google needs ironclad justification to terminate an employee. The opposite is true. We have, as conservatives vigorously argued for, at-will employment in pretty much the whole country. The NLRA will protect your right to improve workplace conditions. The NLRB will not enforce that right if what you're doing isn't really about workplace conditions, or is about a desire to change those conditions to something that might conflict with your employer's requirements under the law.
  - leereeves 9y ago
    My challenge to the NLRB's opinion is premised on the idea that Google employees have a right to discuss Google's diversity policy. The NLRB seems to agree, repeatedly saying that Damore's memo contained protected speech. But when that discussion brings up unpleasant scientific findings, the NLRB and I diverge; IMO a scientific explanation should not render otherwise protected speech unprotected.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      The issue isn't that the science is unpleasant. It's that state and federal law compel companies like Google to maintain anti-harassment policies, and the NLRB defers to the company on how they're enforced. If you want to complain about Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, that's a different discussion; it's not really fair to take the NLRB to task for that.
      - leereeves 9y ago
        The issue is that referring to these scientific results is "harassment" because they are unpleasant.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > The issue is that referring to these scientific results is "harassment" because they are unpleasant. That the manner and context in which Damore referred to them is a violation of Google's reasonable anti-harassment policy does not mean that either that act, and even less referring to them more generally, is harassment. Necessarily, any anti-harasssment policy that will successfully prevent harassment liability seeks to, through means up to and including termination, prevent liability by dealing with acts before they reach the level at which legal harassment—a violation of the law by the employer—occurs. An anti-harassment policy that only addressed acts after the threshold for legal harassment was reached would be a very expensive failure.
    - jxdxbx 9y ago
      Google employees do not have a right to discuss Google’s diversity policy. That does not fall within the “improving workplace conditions” exception. Google is within its rights to simply fire all conservatives if it wants to. I think labor law should be different, but it’s not.
- taneq 9y ago
  Also this memo would be in the context of an official company policy of preferentially hiring southerners despite them making up a small portion of the applicant pool.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  None of the groups involved being a protected class under Title VII, and harassment being a means of discrimination against such a class, no, it wouldn't be harassment in the relevant legal sense, and would probably not be within the scope of an anti-harassment policy.
stcredzero 9y ago
Why is this chilling? Because he wasn't actually saying anything particularly bad. Instead, he was terminated on the emotional reaction to what others imputed he was saying. This reveals a breathtaking level of authoritarian ideological adherence within Google.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  Because he wasn't actually saying anything particularly bad. Careful there. What you mean is he wasn't saying anything you personally consider particularly bad. This is not the same thing as "objectively not bad". This is not the same thing as "something no reasonable person could object to". And jumping from your personal opinion that it wasn't bad straight to "a breathtaking level of authoritarian ideological adherence" is, well, quite a leap. Finally: he was terminated on the emotional reaction to what others imputed he was saying The issue with the original "diversity memo" was that there was absolutely no way to read it with the principle of charity in mind and also end up with the interpretation of it his supporters wanted (in order to support the "he didn't say that" narrative). So much of the "he didn't really say that" boils down to ambiguity in the text, but if we assume he had some purpose in mind that he thought was important, and that he was making what he believed was a rational evidence-based argument, and then try to figure out "what important thing is he arguing in support of here", well, there aren't a lot of possible conclusions to end up at.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    This is not the same thing as "objectively not bad". Anything that requires an imputational and emotional interpretation (which can't be supported by particular facts) to be "bad" is "objectively not bad." if we assume he had some purpose in mind that he thought was important Here, you're basically admitting that the reading required to support your position is an imputational and emotional interpretation which can't be supported by particular facts. then try to figure out "what important thing is he arguing in support of here", well, there aren't a lot of possible conclusions to end up at. There are lots of possible alternative conclusions. Here's one: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16398682 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16398682 (Overwhelming persistent effects of human cultural capital.) It's entirely possible that a best-effort fair society with perfect equality of opportunity would still result in other than a 50-50 distribution in a given field for any number of complex, ever changing reasons, in much the same way that it would be impossible to have a vast liquid ocean with no waves. Or are you effectively making the questioning the validity of "equality of outcome" a thought-crime in and of itself? There are plenty of reasons to question "equality of outcome" without ever having to invoke the superiority of anyone.

tptacek 9y ago

It doesn't matter not because the NLRB is settling the science for itself, but because the NLRB doesn't want to intervene in cases where employers enforce anti-harassment policies. There's a case history about this, cited in the memo. Remember, the presumption at law is that Google has the right to fire employees for virtually no reason (conservatives should find this congenial). Damore was attempting to avail himself of an exception to that rule.

leereeves 9y ago
You're right, the NLRB isn't settling the science. It's saying that discussion of the science renders otherwise protected speech unprotected ("so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected"), and effectively removing workers' legal right to engage in science-based discussion of whether a 50/50 gender ratio is the appropriate goal.
- tptacek 9y ago
  You don't have a legal right to engage in science-based discussion of anything at your workplace! Damore's claim is subtly different. He relies on the fact that you do, under the NLRA, have the right to organize to change workplace conditions. But your right to do that is enforceable only through the NLRB, is an exception to at-will employment, and is trumped by federal and state EEO laws. When employee organizing conflicts with employer legal compliance, the employer's low burden to justify a termination is even lower.
  - leereeves 9y ago
    If we have a legal right to discuss something at work, we should also have a legal right to a science-based discussion of that topic. The Advice Memo seems to agree that discussion of Google's diversity program was protected speech, until it strayed into scientific findings that some people found offensive.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      I think you're still not getting it. You don't have the legal right to discuss things at work without termination. Blanket federal employment law says that there is a powerful presumption in favor of the employer when terminating employees. They can fire you for what you say. They can fire you for dying your hair the wrong hair color. They don't need a good reason. You need a good reason if you're going to contest a termination.

stcredzero 9y ago

> > were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. > I find this disturbing. I find this very disturbing as well. The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, face-value reading of the memo and impute motivations to him. So basically, any employee commentary on an employer's policies with regards to the EEO's goals can be held to be "discriminatory" and "harassment" because it "sounds bad" and "sounds like" it's against EEO's goals, even if that can't be demonstrated on a factual basis. You will fall in line, and you don't even dare sound like you're secretly against us. How is that not "thought-crime?"

tptacek 9y ago
You can call it that if you want; then, in the US, you can be fired for "thought crime". The only thing at issue here is that you can't be fired in retaliation for workplace organizing --- but that protection doesn't apply if what you're organizing about pertains to an area where the NLRB gives deference to employers. There's a case history in the Advice Memo. They didn't make this up just for Google.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  that protection doesn't apply if what you're organizing about pertains to an area where the NLRB gives deference to employers. Those precedents exist to prevent employees from organizing active resistance to the NLRB's goals. If you read Damore's memo at face value, he's proposing modifying the way in which Google pursues those goals, taking differences in preferences into account. Strangely enough, Google and YouTube executives have spoken in public and have basically taken James Damore's memo's position and advocated the same kind of action he proposes in the memo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrOp8ewzJDc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrOp8ewzJDc Given the broad power possessed by the NLRB, how can this situation not result in a moral hazard?
  - tptacek 9y ago

conanbatt 9y ago

The great fear around this topic. What would be the consequence if it were scientifically proven that men had a slight biological advantage over women in software engineering? I sense the mob puts a noise layer because the mob has an opinion of what to do in that case that it doesnt want to accept.

moduspol 9y ago
> What would be the consequence if it were scientifically proven that men had a slight biological advantage over women in software engineering? They're already hedged against that. They would claim that only means that the software engineering process / profession was designed to cater to masculine traits, and as a result, is sexist. It's yet another tool of the patriarchy. That software engineering has worked out as it has so far isn't indicative of success because we don't have the alternative profession to compare it to. One that puts more value in diversity, empathy, avoiding conflict, and working cooperatively. If only we valued those things more, men wouldn't have such a leg up. That's the fun part of these views: they can't ever be proven wrong. There's always another level of underlying oppression for any perceivable sleight.

spinlock 9y ago

His assertions were bullshit. I thought Google should have fired him for bad science. He wasn't posting the analysis of a study he had done. He wasn't sharing data that he collected and wanted to analyze. He posted his opinions without any evidence backing them up.

leereeves 9y ago
His original memo did include references to scientific studies backing up his assertions, but several outside parties distributed the memo without these references.
- xenadu02 9y ago
  This has been debunked a million times. He did no such thing. The one legit study he cited came to the opposite conclusion he claimed. Putting footnotes in a document doesn’t magically make them scientific research. Please stop repeating this trope.
  - leereeves 9y ago
    Please stop making vapid assertions without evidence. Cite your sources.

Toboe 9y ago

If you want to read it benevolently (benevolent to the NLRB), you could also take it as a claim that his references aren't scientific, but pseudo-scientific[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

The text you quote has scare quotes around "scientific", so it probably means that Damore's opinion was not backed by the science. That doesn't say the NLRB think that science doesn't matter, quite the opposite.

walshemj 9y ago

using the quotes "scientific" is the polite lawyer way of saying its total bolocks