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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."
About damn time. Let's see if the courts are as willing as social media platforms to allow racism and discrimination as long as it's against the "right" people.
Google was not only wrong to fire him, but Google's CEO Sundar Pichai should be fired for being inept.
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his politics, he caused google to get a lot of negative press (yes so did the leaker, but widely disemminating such a document massively increased the chance of a leak).
Google as a corporate entity don't seem to care for much any more these days except the almighty dollar. Don't be evil! Lol! If you hurt the bottom line you're gone.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's such a relief to know that this same sort of delusional blathering is still being dished out by lefty shills. Because it's exactly what cost the Democrats nearly a thousand legislative seats, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and millions of two-time Obama voters who'd had enough of the completely fake histrionics. Even destroy-Trump-all-the-time networks like CNN have moved on past your deprecated talking points about phony felony collusion that isn't even a thing and never happened, and are now trying their hardest to talk up psychological reasons for removal from office, because that's all they've got. Please, though, carry on. Because if we want to watch the Dems fall on their faces in 2018 exactly like they did in 2016, it's voices like yours that are going to get it done. Thanks!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Exactly. Any woman in my organization who complained would find herself on the street.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
but widely disemminating such a document massively increased the chance of a leak
Except he did not "widely diseminate such a document". He had a "training seminar" and was asked for feedback, which he provided on an internal board reserved for such discussions internally.
AKA : he did nothing wrong at all. Google got bad press because they force everyone into "diversity training" and then don't like it when people don't think "skin color" or "gender" is a good attribute to base hirings on and lets them know the "seminar" was simply bad.
Did you even read the memo ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Protected classes. Race and gender are protected classes everywhere in the US, and political affiliation (and activities) are a protected class in California.
I remember people claiming that DaMore was a liberal or democrat, but I guess that's clarified now.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
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;
...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.
There are a number of different lists but a pretty good example of why James Damore has a decent chance at legal victory is here.
If he Google were anywhere else but California he probably would not be able to win. But then again, if Google were any place other than California he would not have been fired...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I worked at Intel and - sure - you can talk about employment policies during the appropriate venue. However, there is a stronger policy called "disagree and commit". Means just what it says: you may disagree, but at the end of the day you will adhere to policy or leave.
I remember people claiming that DaMore was a liberal or democrat, but I guess that's clarified now.
He probably is. His memo was pretty liberal leaning after all and there is a very large difference from classic Liberals (pro free speech, pro meritocracy) and Progressives (anti-speech that hurts feelings, pro-affirmative action and quotas).
However, he was portrayed as conservative by media and probably perceived as such by his employer. As you know, classic liberals these days are being labeled conservatives simply for holding the belief that gender disparity in some occupations could be entirely the result of freewill and biological differences that may promote different interests that lead to different career paths.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
But was instantiated incorrectly.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
As opposed to all the other groups protests (discrimination, wage gap, "unwelcome advances", etc) that gave everyone at work the warm fuzzies and a general feeling of unity.
Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not true.
Yeah, a black democrat named Barack Obama
Actually he was half black if need to be specific... There was a discussion on CSPAN3 or 2 of a book author talked about Obama and how he "walked in thin ice" about racism during his Presidency. Author said Obama was highly educated, married once and still is, two daughters doing well in school. Also well spoken, did appropriate sports like play golf, etc. If Obama was like Trump, he would have never been elected.
mfwright@batnet.com
What I want to know is if the person that leaked his private internal company document (that **he submitted at the request of google for feedback after a diversity training seminar**) was also fired? Because that's the person that turned it into a PR nightmare.
Please, do not settle for non-disclosure agrrement, not even if they offer you a billion dollars.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
He caused google to get bad press.
No, he did not. The leaker did. And then I dare argue not even the leaker. The memo itself is tame and sound. The progressive (aka regressive) press that libeled the memo to hell and pretended it was saying things it did not say at all is what caused Google bad press.
If anything, it's Salon's, The Verge's, Vox's and other progressive-leaning blogs and trashy "news" outlets that caused Google to get bad press. And if you want to argue "journalistic" freedom, well fine, then it's back to the leaker.
James Damore was provided a "training seminar" (the quotes are important, because the forced diversity propaganda speech he was forced to listen to was no seminar, and it certainly wasn't training) and provided feedback, as asked, on the company internal forums, which serve this purpose.
Do you still need further clarification of the events ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
California explicitly protects based on political affiliation.
https://www.employmentattorneyla.com/blog/2017/06/what-are-californias-protected-classes-in-employment.shtml
Conservative isn't a political affiliation though, it's a political belief. He's not claiming that Google fired him for being a registered Republican (I think he actually claimed to be Independent?), but that they fired him because of his conservative beliefs.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Obama showed just how good our minority population has made itself to overcome the systemic racism in our society
Uhm... Perhaps you should start be denouncing the criminals and gangbangers who are of your own race, like most other races do? And I mean you, personally, not black people in general. Your minority population still makes up the majority of perpetrators of violent crimes against other members of your minority population. Speak out against that and put an end to it, then you'll have made yourself (again, you personally) "good". I know many black people who recognize this fact and speak out against it; those are good people. You, on the other hand, stand under the umbrella of someone else's accomplishment and claim you've overcome racism? No, Obama overcame racism, black men and women who decry the violent and ignorant actions of lesser individuals have overcome racism, but what have you done to better yourself?
I know I'm gonna get flamed hard for this and likely be downmodded into oblivion but, you know what? I don't care. What I'm saying needs to be said. Here it is: RACE ONLY MATTERS AS MUCH AS YOU LET IT MATTER.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
According to the Santa Clara Superior Court's website, Damore's lead attorney is Harmeet Kaur Dhillon.
Dhillon's Wikipedia entry says she is the former vice chairman of the California Republican Party, and the National Committeewoman of the Republican National Committee for California. An article from the San Francisco Daily Journal posted on Dhillon's website says she is a former American Civil Liberties board member.
On March 9, the Wall Street Jounal reported that she was being considered to run the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Department of Justice. She apparently interviewed with both Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump, but was not offered or did not accept the job.
DuckDuckGoing her leads to lots of articles about her politics and personal life, but nothing about how many cases she has won. I bet Google will be represented by attorneys who have spent more time litigating and less time politicking.
Conservative is not. As one of those snowflakes I would like it to be, but those sort of worker protections have been shot down by (ironically) white, conservative men...
The suit was filed in California, where political affiliation does qualify for some of the employment-related protections afforded to protected classes.
To wit:
California law prohibits employers from making rules or policies that forbid or prevent employees from participating in politics or running for public office, or that control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees. State law also prohibits employers from coercing or attempting to influence employees' political decisions by threats of discharge or loss of employment (CA Lab. Code Sec. 1101, Sec. 1102).
It was not a "manifesto", let alone an anti-diversity one. That's what it was called in the media. Big difference.
Funny, the group of white nationalists which usually echos those sentiments seems to think skin colour and gender is an excellent attribute to justify not hiring people
Because white nationalists are as bigoted as progressives. Identity politics is cancer, from both sides.
You know, a wise man once said :
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Maybe one day we'll be rid of Identity Politics.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
It astounds me that American politics has devolved into confused name-calling and an almost complete inability to form coherent and rational arguments. Let's bring things back to reality; both major American political parties expound right wing, authoritarian viewpoints and philosophies. The only thing that differs is the degree.
Faced with that reality, it's bewildering that half of the US population supports the elephant party, while strongly believing that donkey party followers are complete loons (and vice-versa). That's simply not a sane conclusion. Just because someone votes a certain way doesn't automatically make them a blithering idiot, nor does it mean that they're not allowed to disagree with some of the policies put forward by the legislators they vote into office.
It's also pretty clear to anyone with a reasonable grasp of the English language that President Trump is prone to frequent odd outbursts and declarations that are sometimes completely incoherent and provably false. That should be cause for significant concern, whether you're conservative or liberal.
Reading the memo will only make you dumber,
If you read it, you wouldn't pretend things like :
His opinion being that google shouldn't recruit women because they might have on average less aptitude than men for some tasks.
The actual quote :
Note, Iâ(TM)m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these
differences are âoejust.â Iâ(TM)m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why
we donâ(TM)t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences
are small and thereâ(TM)s significant overlap between men and women, so you canâ(TM)t say anything
about an individual given these population level distributions.
So yes, you can disagree, you can argue the science he used and the studies he cited are wrong, or that he misunderstood them, but trying to depict the memo as vile while not having read it is malicious.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
This is Slashdot, it's what we do.
Table-ized A.I.
Donald Trump's unhinged tantrums on Twitter are game theory. Tit for tat.
He is merely feeding back to the American public exactly what they are putting out.
Like your post. It is unhinged, ridiculous on its face (and increasingly so after any level of consideration), and a testament to the absolute insanity that partisanship foments. To me it looks identical to the Twitter account of Donald Trump in tone and intellect.
In many ways this fits the description I have heard about "the government you deserve." When the electorate learns maturity, restraint, and civility we will get mature, restrained, and civil governance.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Well no, he didn't. What he said is that there are differences on average between men and women and those differences can explain why a job is not exactly 50:50 male and female even in the absence of discrimination. He also pointed out that those differences are an average for a group and pointed out there's a lot of overlap. So saying 'women on average are more X than men' doesn't mean that 'each individual woman is more X than any man'. When the fake news media reported on his report they accused him of saying that 'men can code/women can't code', but he very carefully explained this was not what he was saying. And he even drew a nice diagram of two overlapping normal distributions to illustrate this point.
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
Note, I'm not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are "just." I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there's significant overlap between men and women, so you can't say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.
He pointed out that Google's policies now discriminate against men and that there were non discriminatory ways to get more women to work there.
But why not try reading what he actually wrote rather than what other people - who have an agenda - said he wrote. I even linked to a copy of his memo so you can verify he said all the things I said he said, and carefully explained he was not saying what you accused him of saying.
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;
I'm getting tired of reading this bullshit. Yeah, you'd have a case if it wasn't for google ASKING for everyone's opinion on how the workplace could be made better (whatever you want to define as better).
Damore said "Stop acting like we're all the same. Women have things to contribute, so adapt the workplace to their needs instead of molding it for a virtual template of a unisex humanoid that does not exist".
He pointed out what was, in his opinion, a mistake the company made and how they could go about fixing it. Only problem was reality doesn't fit Google's alternate facts.
It's a-okay for a car company to want to run according to other laws than those of physics however when you then notice that your sales could be better and ask for input and an engineer points this out, you either go "Well, guess we can't work according to cartoon physics any longer" or you go "Dude, thanks so much for wanting to help but that really doesn't fit into our dogma. Please consider either keeping this opinion to yourself in the future or we'll be glad to help you find other employment".
Yeah, yeah... they're not required by law to act like that but god damnit, it's the respectful thing to do. Then again, respect and ethics are not things US culture is known for comprehending.
There is no such thing as "reverse racism", racism is racism, and judging people by the color of their skin is always wrong, even if your purpose is to help the person.
There are no such thing as good racism, as you're always reducing the person to his physical features.
It astounds me that American politics has devolved into confused name-calling and an almost complete inability to form coherent and rational arguments.
That's mostly how it appears on TV.
"On the ground" in the state and local governments, things are generally more sane.
It's also pretty clear to anyone with a reasonable grasp of the English language that President Trump is prone to frequent odd outbursts and declarations that are sometimes completely incoherent and provably false. That should be cause for significant concern, whether you're conservative or liberal.
Our political system doesn't really have all that many checks or balances in it. It has primarily worked on social norms. Continuous, blatant lying used to violate those norms, and so would cause some repercussions.
However, the Republican party currently sees an advantage in torching all those norms, and gerrymandering and legislative structure gives them about a 10-15% popular vote buffer to retain power. So there's no one with sufficient power who is willing to step in.
What will get "interesting" is when that 10-15% buffer is not large enough, and the Democratic party seizes absolute power with no social norms remaining. Because the climb over that buffer is not being done by the right-wing of the party, but the left. The right-wing of the party will want to restore the norms. The left wing of the party will find that unacceptable. And thus things start to get really interesting.
Having read it, the only difference I can see is that my summary of it is shorter and more direct.
Your summary: Google should avoid hiring women because they may be less apt at X.
His argument: Due to biological differences Google won't find equally many women to do X.
Let me try to make the argument even blunter, imagine you want employees that are over six feet tall for some reason. There are obviously women taller than that and men shorter than that, but you will find the pool is highly skewed against men. What he's saying is that great, you can hire every woman over six feet tall you can find, but you can't expect them to be half the employees because they're not half the workforce and everybody wants those that tick the diversity boxes.
The only way you can force an artificial balance in an unbalanced pool is to pay them more so all the tall women come work for you while everyone else is skewed even more or lower demands so that women actually don't have to be so tall as men. Either way they get special treatment for their diversity, not their actual work output. And that this is unfair both to the women who did pass the same qualifications as everyone else and the men who got bumped down the list.
Of course he wasn't talking about something as unalterable as height, he was talking about qualified tech workers. And that if Google wants more women in tech, they should spend their money on bringing up more qualified female candidates not make special rules for females. And his theory was that you still wouldn't get equal representation because men and women think differently and have different interests and values and that Google shouldn't begin with the answer being 50:50 and construe that everything that's not must be the result of gender discrimination of some form.
Of course this offended a bunch of SJW activists that think sex is a social construct and that boys would play with dolls and wear pink tutus while girls would play with cars and toy soldiers if nobody boxed them into gender roles. There's no doubt that in many companies and workplaces there has been a lot of resistance and bigotry against those that go against traditional gender roles and I hope we'll get past that as individuals. But seemingly no matter how far equality goes there still seem to be rather large statistical differences in the career paths we choose.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
We all want to be with people like us. That means living near, hiring, being hired by, buying from, selling to, dating, marrying, breeding with, befriending, having them as our law enforcement officers and judges, seeing them daily, and having shared cultural standards and mores with them.
Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone) had some convincing research on the failure of diversity which explains our balkanized and atomized state:
Alternative Right.
Then you end up with a company full of white male sex offenders. I say we allow it; if they're all working there, they're not intermixing with the general population and other, more same companies are better off for it.
You've never worked a day in your life, in a female dominated office have you? The shit that men say is tame, sexual harassment against men is rampant as well. Here's an example: When was the last time you head a group of guys standing around talking about how best to knock a women up, so she can get married and have an easy-train to alimony. I head the exact opposite from women, and worse. Everything from lying to be on BC, to stop taking it, to putting holes in condoms, to digging through the trash after sex for one. If you really want to hear about my own personal experiences ranging from both a fortune 500 company and in government offices? Reply, I'll be happy to give you examples.
The problem is for men, there's no real recourse except to put up with it. If HR hates you for bringing it up, they will schedule you in with the person harassing you, if they really hate you, they'll put you both in, early, before everyone else shows up, or make you stay late. Just like there are no real domestic violence shelters for men, and there's a big need for them. The fact that feminists who claim it's all about equality fight so hard against having male DV shelters should tell you exactly what type of equality they're fighting for.
Om, nomnomnom...
they will roll out the HR termination paperwork documenting how he was abusing other employees because they weren't white
Ha. All he did was state his opinion that Google's policies and culture were discriminatory. For that, HE was abused by the social "justice" idiots that rule the roost at Google, like this asshole:
From: Alex Hidalgo <ahidalgo@google.com>
Subject: You are a terrible person
Date: Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 10:38 PM
To: James Damore <damore@google.com>
Feel free to pass this along to HR. Keep them in the loop for all I care. May as well do it early.
You're a misogynist and a terrible human. I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you.
-Alex
https://www.scribd.com/documen...
He didn't voice his opinion publicly. He voiced his opinion in a private company blog after Google asked him for his opinion. Then someone leaked it.
-- Will program for bandwidth
You sir, are dishonest. I am an atheist and my moral code is strong and established by my choices. The reason I am an atheist is that you and your religious compatriots follow the moral codes of "gods" that do not have any morals themselves.
You naked a public statement that implies I am mentally incompetent, that I and others like me "are not capable of creating the necessary philosophical and mental framework that supports the existence of a populous and culture that embraces values of personal integrity and policies based on hard data and logic."
You fail your own moral standards.
The bible is logical? I do not think so.
It's also pretty clear to anyone with a reasonable grasp of the English language that President Trump is prone to frequent odd outbursts and declarations that are sometimes completely incoherent and provably false. That should be cause for significant concern, whether you're conservative or liberal.
I oppose Trump but I wonder if some of the things he says aren't just trickery to keep people talking about his chosen topic. Every time he misstates a number or fact, that becomes another piece of news. In fact, it often becomes the News of the Day. It brings attention to the topic, and the news organizations dogpile on either supporting or proving it incorrect.
His detractors aren't going to change their opinion of Trump over the misstatement, his supporters likely won't, and Trump's chosen issue becomes the issue of the day, blocking out many other current events. It is a highly effective distraction technique. There were plenty of such distractions when the tax bill was going through congress, and any time negative news about Trump is circulating.
On the other hand, he might be completely crazy and any positive effects of that are simply coincidental.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Then there's the Democratic Socialists. The Bernie Bros. I don't see these guys getting anywhere. Nobody wants to pay for something else's medical care. Nobody want to pay for their schools. Sure, you can argue that such things benefit everyone (e.g. we could pay our national debt off in 10 years with the money single payer healthcare would save, look it up). But it still doesn't _feel_ right. Especially with a good chunk of the country bigoted against _somebody_. We're balkanized. We're not Americans. We're White Americans. Black Americans. Gay Americans. Christian Americans. But we're not Americans.
You are correct about Americans being fragmented. We had a lot more overt racism and demonization of different groups back in the 1950s but at least the American Dream, national pride, and national unity was a coherent idea shared by most people (even if it was not completely true).
On the topic of socialist policies, I DO want to pay for education of others. The children of today will be taking care of me when I'm old, and it is in my direct interest that they are not complete idiots. On the other hand, every time the government gets involved in paying private enterprises for things, costs skyrocket as people game the system. Expanding college education by subsidies or direct payments is a prime example. Health insurance is another.
The most cost-effective government services are those run without significant subcontracting, such as the Postal service, National Parks, etc. Government should provide services either directly without significant subcontracting, or not at all. The problem with this is that private companies are well entrenched, lobby for subsidies, and oppose government-run services that compete with them. Local government-run internet services are a prime example.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.