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Labor Board Says Google Could Fire James Damore For Anti-Diversity Memo (theverge.com)
According to a recently disclosed letter from the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, Google didn't violate labor laws by firing engineer James Damore for a memo criticizing the company's diversity program. "The lightly redacted statement is written by Jayme Sophir, associate general counsel of the NLRB's division of advice; it dates to January, but was released yesterday, according to Law.com," reports The Verge. "Sophir concludes that while some parts of Damore's memo was legally protected by workplace regulations, 'the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected.'" From the report: Damore filed an NLRB complaint in August of 2017, after being fired for internally circulating a memo opposing Google's diversity efforts. Sophir recommends dismissing the case; Bloomberg reports that Damore withdrew it in January, and that his lawyer says he's focusing on a separate lawsuit alleging discrimination against conservative white men at Google. NLRB records state that its case was closed on January 19th. In her analysis, Sophir writes that employers should be given "particular deference" in trying to enforce anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, since these are tied to legal requirements. And employers have "a strong interest in promoting diversity" and cooperation across different groups of people. Because of this, "employers must be permitted to 'nip in the bud' the kinds of employee conduct that could lead to a 'hostile workplace,'" she writes. "Where an employee's conduct significantly disrupts work processes, creates a hostile work environment, or constitutes racial or sexual discrimination or harassment, the Board has found it unprotected even if it involves concerted activities regarding working conditions."
There is so much disinformation surrounding Damore.
His memo was not against diversity. He specifically included very well-researched and reasoned suggestions on how to encourage more women to get involved and make tech more attractive to them as a career choice.
Read the damn thing yourself, people.
Here's the relevant part of the decision: (https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391 page 5)
The Charging Partyâ(TM)s use of stereotypes based on purported biological differences between women and men should not be treated differently than the types of conduct the Board found unprotected in these cases. statements about immutable traits linked to sexâ"such as womenâ(TM)s heightened neuroticism and menâ(TM)s prevalence at the top of the IQ distributionâ"were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, not withstanding effort to cloak comments with âoescientificâ references and analysis, and notwithstanding âoenot all womenâ disclaimers. Moreover, those statements were likely to cause serious dissension and disruption in the workplace. Indeed, the memorandum did cause extreme discord, which the Charging Party exacerbated by deliberately expanding its audience. Numerous employees complained to the Employer that the memorandum was discriminatory against women, deeply offensive, and made them feel unsafe at work. Moreover, the Charging Party reasonably should have known that the memorandum would likely be disseminated further, even beyond the workplace. Once the memorandum was shared publicly, at least two female engineering candidates withdrew from consideration and explicitly named the memo as their reason for doing so. Thus, while much of the Charging Partyâ(TM)s memorandum was likely protected, the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected.
So basically:
1. They don't buy the bogus scientific argument, which has been debunked by the authors of the studies he cited.
2. The use of softening language / disclaimers like "not all women" and "on average" don't help him.
3. He distributed the memo himself initially, expanding its audience, and should have known that such an inflammatory document would be more widely distributed once circulated.
4. People complained and actually withdraw from job opportunities as a result. Snowflakes or otherwise, there was measurable damage done to Google's workplace.
5. While a lot of what he said was protected, the statements on biological differences between the sexes (which were deemed bogus and pseudo-scientific, conclusions that the authors of the cited studies agreed with) do not enjoy any legal protection and Google was okay to fire him on over them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
https://www.judicialwatch.org/...
In response to an April 29, 2011, Wall Street Journal article, calling on President Obama to explain the NLRB lawsuit against Boeing, NLRB attorney Jayme Sophir issues a one word email response on May 2, 2011, to NLRB attorney Debra Willen, Division of Advice: âoeUgh.â
She was appointed by Obama
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
An Obama administration holdover at the National Labor Relations Board recommended last year that a case accusing President Donald Trumpâ(TM)s businesses and presidential campaign of requiring workers to sign unlawful confidentiality agreements be dismissed, according to a memo released this week.
Associate General Counsel Jayme Sophir in an advice memo dated Oct. 31, 2017 said there was no evidence that the agreements were ever enforced, and the law firm that brought the case, Weinberg Roger & Rosenfeld, did not file it on behalf of any employees of the Trump Organization Inc or the campaign.
I think it's safe to assume Sophir is a left winger.
Article here
https://www.wsj.com/articles/S...
It's paywalled, but you can read it here
http://archive.is/1pp1R
South Carolina is a right-to-work state, and we're proud that within our borders workers cannot be required to join a labor union as a condition of employment. We don't need unions playing middlemen between our companies and our employees. We don't want them forcefully inserted into our promising business climate. And we will not stand for them intimidating South Carolinians.
That is apparently too much for President Obama and his union-beholden appointees at the National Labor Relations Board, who have asked the courts to intervene and force Boeing to stop production in South Carolina. The NLRB wants Boeing to produce the planes only in Washington state, where its workers must belong to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
Let's be clear: Boeing is a great corporate citizen in Washington and in South Carolina. The company chose to come to our state because the cost of doing business is low, our job training and work force are strong, and our ports are tremendous. The fact that we are a right-to-work state is an added bonus.
The actions by the NLRB are nothing less than a direct assault on the 22 right-to-work states across America. They are also an unprecedented attack on an iconic American company that is being told by the federal governmentâ"which seems to regard its authority as endlessâ"where and how to build airplanes.
The president has been silent since his hand-selected NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon, who has not yet been confirmed by the United States Senate as required by law, chose to engage in economic warfare on behalf of the unions last week.
While silence in this case can be assumed to mean consent, President Obama's silence is not acceptableâ"not to me, and certainly not to the millions of South Carolinians who are rightly aghast at the thought of the greatest economic development success our state has seen in decades being ripped away by federal bureaucrats who appear to be little more than union puppets.
Basically Nikki Haley criticised the Obama admin for taking Boeing to court over setting up shop in a 'right to work' state where workers don't have to join a union..
Presumably her reaction to Damore's memo was a similarly visceral 'Ugh'.
So it's not surprising she's decided that the labor rules she's so keen on defending don't appl
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;
Yes - the point in this case is that it's a very specific type of freedom that's granted by the 1st amendment. Specifically, the government can not ban you from saying things.
This wasn't the government banning him from saying anything, it was google saying "yes, you can say that, but we disagree, and feel that you damaged our image so badly that you're fired". That's an entirely different thing.
No one from a government agency put him in prison, or legally punished him in any way for saying what he said, therefore his 1st amendment rights weren't violated.
You are lying openly and systematically throughout this thread. The science on biological differences between men and women has been settled for almost half a century now. The screaming by people like you that "evolution ends at the neck, and everything above it is socially constructed", while enacting catholic-grade punishments for breaching your dogma is horrifying and clean cut anti-science.
There was nothing discriminatory or bigoted about the memo. Damore was asked what to do about the problem of too few women at Google. Like a proper engineer he broke the problem down based on scientific facts, and then made suggestions.
And like folks like Galilei and Copernicus, he ran afoul the religious fanatics such as yourself, who are at the reigns of power in today's world and have no qualms in using societal punishment to silence anyone who dares to challenge their dogmatic anti-scientific beliefs.
Read the article I linked to, they interviewed the actual authors of the study. Not some other scientists, the people who wrote the studies that Damore cited as scientific evidence in his memo. And they said in clear, unambiguous language that his conclusions were unwarranted.
The main issue is not that there are not differences between genders, no one is disputing that. The problem is the degree to which they influence career choice and performance. The authors of the actual studies Damore cites say that the differences are small and would not account for the low percentage of women working at Google.
Perhaps Damore will cite those other people you found in his lawsuit. The problem is that the court will consider the memo as it was when he circulated it at Google. He can't very well try to argue against the authors of the studies he cites as evidence of his own views, so it's hard to see how he can win on the grounds of his memo being scientifically sound.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
When the story first broke, I didn't even bother checking Damore's exact references on the science. A quick google search will turn up tens of thousands of journal articles substantiating that the gender differences he specified do in fact exist.
If you can come up a similar list of empirical studies which show no gender difference, then you have a leg to stand on. Otherwise you are using your preconceptions and biases to subvert scientific facts.
If you actually cared about the science, the very first link in my search above presents in its abstract (so you only need to spend 15 seconds reading) an obvious scientific rebuttal to Damore's memo. Women score higher on neuroticism than men. Men score higher on psychoticism. You can then make the scientific argument that gender differences exist, but they tend to cancel out. Since the null theory has to be that there is no difference (you cannot prove a negative), it then becomes the scientific duty of those advocating that there is a difference to analyze the data and show that it doesn't cancel out.
But that's not what happened. That would entail admitting that gender differences exist, and the people crucifying Damore can't have that. So they did what they could to discredit the science - ask paper authors until one of them presented opinions conciliatory to their POV. They then use that singular opinion as an excuse to ignore the entire body of scientific work on the topic.
1. They don't buy the bogus scientific argument, which has been debunked by the authors of the studies he cited.
Personally, I think that the Myers-Briggs studies he brought up were awful, but I don't think that was his fault. Have you actually read them? If he made mistakes, or if his information was outdated, you correct him. That's how we resolve differences. Some people can't be corrected, that's true enough, but honestly, I don't think that was the case for him
2. The use of softening language / disclaimers like "not all women" and "on average" don't help him.
No, those were quantifiers, not disclaimers.
And unlike President Trump for instance, Damos used quantifiers pretty well actually. Many feminists could learn a thing or two from him instead of using absolute quantifiers, or instead of using no quantifier at all.
3. He distributed the memo himself initially, expanding its audience, and should have known that such an inflammatory document would be more widely distributed once circulated.
He distributed the memo inside an official working group of ~8 people. He didn't expand the memo behind that. Others did it for him.
4. People complained and actually withdraw from job opportunities as a result. Snowflakes or otherwise, there was measurable damage done to Google's workplace.
Not to mention men.
I guarantee you that far many more men stopped applying to Google than women after their reaction to Damos.
1. That should not matter, the science was published, and the conclusions he took from it are a valid conclusion, so to the best of his ability he was stating fact, normally THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH. The fact that some of the publishers (not all not, some actually said his interpretation was correct) since backpedaled on their own research is hardly Damores fault. You are not required to be CORRECT in all interpretations, just to have not presented things you know to be false - this is LONG established - otherwise everyone would be required to be THE leading expert in everything they said - which is obviously impossible.
2 - Why not? Because you want to change what he was saying? He made it clear he was speaking of averages and trends, not absolutes - and then is getting punished as though he stated absolutes.
3 - He (amongst others) was asked by his employer to write their thoughts on the subject and publish them to a specific internal location - he did exactly as requested by his employer. He is no was distributed it further than that - where is the punishment for those who did? Why is he being punished for following instructions of his employer?
4 - Why is that his responsibility? Google asked people for their thoughts, he did exactly as asked. The fact that they did not like the response was not his fault - perhaps they should have had a process in place to vet submissions if they didnt want such opinions.
5 - Why not? They are very well known science, and the fact that they may be unpopular amongst some at present does not change than, neither does a backpedal on published research by some of the people involved (but, importantly, not all, and not the leaders in the field) does not change that. He published information that was at that time publicly published in respectable scientific journals - why should he be punished for repeating such content?
The situation we are creating here is one where someone can get punished for repeating publicly accepted (by peer reviewed journal publishing) information in a way their employer asked them to, because the employer felt embarrassed about it after the fact. Think about the ramifications of that for a while.
Also note that NO action was taken against him at the time he followed the instructions of Google - in fact it was only taken after a 3rd party made this information public. THAT, above all else, should indicate that Googles actions are blindingly wrong.
No, this is the Hundred Flowers Campaign in a corporate setting. Google sought feedback from participants of its interpretation of what diversity training should be, but didn't like the critical feedback they got, and so retaliated. The Hundred Flowers Campaign , also termed the Hundred Flowers Movement, was a period in 1956 in the People's Republic of China during which the Communist Party of China encouraged its citizens to openly express their opinions of the communist regime. Differing views and solutions to national policy were encouraged based on the famous expression by Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong: "The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science." ...
After this brief period of liberalization, Mao used this to oppress those who challenged the communist regime by using force. The crackdown continued through 1957 as an Anti-Rightist Campaign against those who were critical of the regime and its ideology. Those targeted were publicly criticized and condemned to prison labor camps.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Well shit it looks like people at the NLRB didn't read the actual memo either. Damore had written specifically against forming stereotypes based on differences in population distributions because of their overlaps.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
Are you white and male? Then your opinions and feelings are invalid.
>"Labor Board Says Google Could Fire James Damore For Anti-Diversity Memo"
And thus, misinformation continues to flow. His memo was not "anti-diversity." A correct title could be:
"Labor Board Says Google Could Fire James Damore For Memo About Anti-Diversity Program"
"Labor Board Says Google Could Fire James Damore For His Memo Criticizing Google's Diversity Program"
It's not a hypothesis, does your wife have a penis?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
"The court" didn't rule on anything. A single person, Jayme Sophir, associate general counsel of the NLRB’s division of advice, decided in an analysis that “the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected.”
Basically, without actually providing any counter-evidence to dispute any claims made by Davore, she dismisses his claims as discriminatory and of a sexually harassing nature.
The letter proper is the following link.
http://apps.nlrb.gov/link/docu...