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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 ha

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.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Google employees do not have a right to discuss Google’s diversity policy. Yes, they do; that right however does not extend to violating Google's anti-harassment policy (which id, itself, a key means by which Google avoids liability under anti-discrimination law.) This is sensible; the alternative would be the NLRA forcing Google to engage in acts and/or omissions which would result in liability under the Civil Rights Act, which is clearly not a tenable state of affairs.
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.

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.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Google employees do not have a right to discuss Google’s diversity policy. Yes, they do; that right however does not extend to violating Google's anti-harassment policy (which id, itself, a key means by which Google avoids liability under anti-discrimination law.) This is sensible; the alternative would be the NLRA forcing Google to engage in acts and/or omissions which would result in liability under the Civil Rights Act, which is clearly not a tenable state of affairs.

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.