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Former Google Employee Files Lawsuit Alleging the Company Fired Him Over Pro-Diversity Posts (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the more-fallout dept.

According to court documents filed today, a former Google engineer is suing the company for discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination. "Tim Chevalier, a software developer and former site-reliability engineer at Google, claims that Google fired him when he responded with internal posts and memes to racist and sexist encounters within the company and the general response to the now-infamous James Damore memo," reports The Verge. From the report: Chevalier said in a statement to The Verge, "It is a cruel irony that Google attempted to justify firing me by claiming that my social networking posts showed bias against my harassers." Chevalier, who is also disabled and transgender, alleges that his internal posts that defended women of color and marginalized people led directly to his termination in November 2017. He had worked at Google for a little under two years. Notably, Chevalier's posts had been quoted in Damore's lawsuit against Google -- in which Damore sued the company for discrimination against conservative white men -- as evidence Google permitted liberals to speak out at the company unpunished. Chevalier's lawsuit alleges that his firing is, in fact, a form of punishment. The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court and Chevalier is seeking damages for lost wages, emotional distress, punitive damages, and injunctive relief against those alleged harmful acts. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

8 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. Work? by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Do they do any real work at Google anymore or just write weird memos about social justice all day?

    1. Re:Work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They were programmed from an early age in public schools, which filled their heads with left wing ideology they were not allowed to question.

      This is the youth of today - good luck.

    2. Re:Work? by hey! · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, dashing off a memo (one way or the other) doesn't take a lot of time.

      What does take a lot of time, cumulatively speaking is reading such memos. If you send a memo and it gets distributed to a couple of hundred people, the cost of that memo can be staggering.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:Work? by jader3rd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A guy in my church congregation who works at Google, mentioned about three weeks ago that he feels if he ever says "I think that a marriage between a man and woman is good." He'll be escorted right out of campus. It does make me think how much non-development communication has to go on there to have such a fear.

    4. Re:Work? by jemmyw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think you're right. When the money pressure was removed from Google they started doing interesting things, but that period was quite short lived before stagnation overtook.

  2. Re:There are many ways to get fired. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I imagine that argument goes well with the #MeToo campaign.

  3. Re: Woman by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Interesting

    yes, he was born with a vagina.

    You have an issue with that, it's your problem, not his.

    I'm pretty sure that her being born with a vagina and then developing the belief that she's a man is an issue for her, and nobody else. It certainly isn't an issue for the court to examine, so wtf is it doing as part of the lawsuit?

  4. Re: He never wrote any pro-diversity posts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What do you mean he is the leaker?

    You have not seen shit about what he used to post. If I were him I would not leak anything.

    True story: I reported this with screenshot evidence around feb/mar last year :

    There was this woman that wrote a long and heartbreaking post on how and the struggle to bring up a mentally challenged child
    or her own, and whom she loved. It was really good and informative on the challenges of a young family protecting and bringing up
    a downs syndrome child.
    I and all other googlers that have a heart, and are not insane, was touched by her experience and her struggle.
    We emotionally started to understand the real live situation and how to help.

    In comes Tim. He is mad. This mother or a challenged child used the "wrong" words to describe her childs disability and he tore her a new asshole
    on how intolerant she was and how bad mother she was. Personal attacks left right and centre and really aiming to hurt this woman that had opened
    up to talk about a very difficult subject. His attacks were relentless. He was so vicious you can not even imagine it towards this woman.
    Not even the worst you have ever seen on twitter comes close.
    He hurls abuse, slurs and personal attacks left right and centre on this woman. Disgusting.

    So fucking disgusting. Such a fucking disgustingly bad person. This was one of the two times I reported him to HR. I never reported him calling fellows rapists or nazi or that they should die or leave google. Those guys can protect themselves. They are grownups.
    But when you viciously attack a mother of a mentally handicapped child, that is crossing the line.

    Hope you read this Tim. You are a disgusting worm.

    There are just so many similar stories about Tim you would not believe it. This one just struck a cord with me for personal reasons.
    No other company would he be left on the payroll for almost a year with HR involvement this long.