Google fires James Damore, an Engineer for "perpetuating gender stereotypes."

*By: Danny W. Ellison, Nate Johnson, Charles D. Kennedy and George McJohn*
on 8/9/2017, at 2:07 A.M

**Google's Ideological Echo Chamber** is an internal memo written in August 2017 by American-based Google engineer James Damore on the company's ideological stance toward diversity. The memo focuses on Google allegedly shutting down the conversation about diversity, and suggests that gender inequality in the technology industry is "in part" due to biological differences between men and women. Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded by saying that the memo "advanc[ed] harmful gender stereotypes", and on August 7 Damore was fired.

The memo and subsequent dismissal provoked a strong reaction from commentators on both sides. Initially shared on an internal mailing list, the paper was leaked to the public via the *Vice* vertical *Motherboard* resulting in heated controversy across social media. The company has formally expressed they don't support the document and several current and former employees were highly critical of it. According to *Wired*, Google's internal forums showed "plenty of support" for Damore who said he received private thanks from employees who were afraid to come forward. Several management and employment law experts noted that while Damore could challenge his firing in court, his potential case would be weak and Google would have several defensible reasons for firing him; the discriminatory content of his memo could be cited as evidence of a "hostile work environment" in sexual harassment lawsuits against Google, and that Damore would be unable to fairly assess or supervise the work of female colleagues.

The memo provides an initial summary (entitled "TL;DR") with the following points:

* Google's political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.
* This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed.
* The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology.
	+ Extreme: all disparities in representation are due to oppression
	+ Authoritarian: we should discriminate to correct for this oppression
* Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.
* Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.

The reaction is that Google's Vice President of Diversity & Governance, Danielle Brown, responded formally to the memo on August 8, 2017 and stated: "Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views, including different political views, feel safe sharing their opinions. But that discourse needs to work alongside the principles of equal employment found in our Code of Conduct, policies, and anti-discrimination laws". Google's CEO Sundar Pichai in a note to Google employees stated, "To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK . . . At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK".

Damore was fired by Google on August 7 and announced that he was considering legal action against the company.

In an opinion for *The Guardian*, science journalist Angela Saini wrote that the memo reflected common misconceptions about the biological differences between men and women, and demonstrated a flawed understanding of the research it cited.

In his tweets Julian Assange of WikiLeaks said he wanted to offer Damore a job and wrote that "censorship is for losers" and "Women & men deserve respect. That includes not firing them for politely expressing ideas but rather arguing back". Megan Smith, a former Google vice president, said Damore's views were common in Silicon Valley and "insidious."

Christina Cauterucci of *Slate Magazine* draws parallels of arguments from the memo with these of men's rights activists.

1. ↑ http://fortune.com/2017/08/07/googles-ideological-echo-chamber/
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Template:Cite web
3. ↑ Template:Cite web
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1  Template:Cite web
5. ↑ https://www.wired.com/story/internal-messages-james-damore-google-memo/
6. ↑ [1]
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Template:Cite news
8. ↑ Google memo writer faces tough legal road challenging firing. CNBC, 8 August 2017
9. ↑ https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf
10. ↑ Note to employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
11. ↑ Template:Cite news
12. ↑ Template:Cite news
13. ↑ Template:Cite news
14. ↑ Template:Cite news
15. ↑ "The Google Anti-Diversity Memo Cribs Its Worst Arguments From Men’s Rights Activists"