James Damore Sues Google For Employment Discrimination
In a complaint filed today in Santa Clara, California, Superior Court, ex-Google software engineer James Damore is suing his former employer for employment discrimination. Another former Google worker is also a plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit, which means that other similarly situated employees or former employees can seek to join the case that alleges that the company engages in discrimination against white males and those whose political ideology is other than progressive.
In a development that made national headlines and created an internal firestorm, Damore was fired in August 2017 after he authored a 10-page memo that challenged the company’s diversity policies and politically correct atmosphere. At the time, Google justified Damore’s termination on the grounds that he allegedly advanced gender stereotypes in the company and violated Google’s code of conduct.
Damore, who describes himself on his Twitter bio as a nerd centrist, asserted that he wrote the controversial internal memorandum that was titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” after attending company diversity workshops. At the risk of oversimplification, the memo argued that biological differences between men and women, in part, explain why tech is more of a male-dominated field.
In the epistle last summer, the author also claimed that Google engaged in discriminatory practices in furtherance of diversity by establishing hiring protocols focused on gender or race. He also suggested that the dominant politically correct, leftist culture at Google has alienated political conservatives inside and outside the organization by minimizing viewpoint or intellectual diversity. He also maintained that workers who question the company’s elevation of racial/gender diversity as a primary objective are shamed into silence.
Ex-employee sues Google, says company blacklists conservatives, discriminates against white men.https://t.co/rODTiG35KQ
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) January 8, 2018
The nearly 200-page legal filing, which contains emails and other internal documents, submitted to the court by attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon, includes the following allegations that seem to parallel the earlier memo, the Washington Post explains.
“The suit by Damore…alleges discrimination by Google against men, people of the ‘Caucasian race,’ and people with perceived conservative political views. The suit says that Google employees who expressed views deviating from the majority at Google on politics or on employment practices including ‘diversity hiring policies, bias sensitivity, and social justice’ were ‘singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google,’ in violation of their legal rights.”
Watch the press conference about the James Damore lawsuit below from Facebook Live.
https://www.facebook.com/dhillonlaw/videos/1565136140242243/
The lawsuit also alleges that Google engages in a quota system to hire female and minority job candidates “and openly shames managers of business units who fail to meet their quotas,” TechCrunch noted.
According to Time magazine, Google has released a statement in response to today’s events that “We look forward to defending against Mr. Damore’s lawsuit in court.”
The allegations have yet to be proven in the courtroom obviously, but any form of racial or gender discrimination violates California law as well as federal law.
Parenthetically, Google was accused during the 2016 presidential election of manipulating search results to help Hillary Clinton win the White House.
You can read the entire lawsuit at this link.
As the James Damore discrimination lawsuit against Google is a developing story, please check back for updates.
