Was Google right to sack anti-Diversity engineer?

I think you're playing semantics.
The essence of his claim, that women are genetically unfit for certain types of work, is nothing new and perpetuates the historical attitudes of domination and subservience that have defined the battle of the sexes since the dawn of time.
Men, being larger and more muscular, have kept women down by the unfortunate reality that might makes right, and then legions of turd polishers have invented reasons why men should be top dogs other than because of their size.
There are obvious physiological and likely psychological differences between the sexes, probably based on the differences in the hormonal chemical soup that their brains live in, but to broad brush this into the typical misogynist pap that all women are equally incapable of doing any particular thing is just more of the same reactionary and ignorant nonsense we've heard before.

 

I'd love to know what would've happened if the guy was a gay Muslim. Or even a woman. Fired or not fired?

 

If Google's only standard was getting lines of code into production, they would be committed to hiring the best people possible, not committed to hiring 50% women. Clearly, getting lines of code into production is NOT their highest standard. When did Google's motto go from, "Don't be evil," to, "Let's be evil!"? Google actively cooperates with the Chinese communist government to suppress search results that are hostile or critical of the Chinese government. And as Paul Joseph Watson pointed out, Youtube (a Google company) is now starting to censor right-wing thought. Isn't censorship evil by definition?

I've only skimmed the memo, but from what I read, they'd be hard-pressed to rebut what he had to say. He only proved his main contention, that Google is too repressive of opposing opinions, by getting himself fired.

Good point! I don't think anyone has tried to sue under that rule from the point of view of a white male before, so it would be an interesting test case.

Short answer is no, you can only sue for wrongful dismissal under very limited circumstances, e.g., discrimination based on age, race, sex, or national origin, or violation of a particular right that has been guaranteed, such as labor organizing. The US has a policy called "work at will," which essentially means you have the right to quit anytime you want, for any reason you want, and your employer has the right to fire you anytime they want, for any reason they want. And generally speaking, suing won't get your job back (there are limited instances of that), only allow you to collect damages for wrongful termination. There are limited examples of what has been called due process cases, where an employer fired an employee without following his own process for termination, and the employee sued. Because the employer absolutely had the right to fire, the case turns on whether the employee was denied due process, i.e., did he have a right to the company's own procedures being followed before being fired. As Latherty noted above, complaining about discrimination is one of those areas that is protected, so he might be able to sue on that basis. My guess is that if he finds another job quickly, he won't bother with the lawsuit.

 

No, in the US there is "at-will" employment and unionized employment. Unfair dismissal may apply to the latter, depedning on what is agreed. "At-will" allows for the employer to fire at any time for any reason. Most of silicon valley is "at-will". The specific employment contract may have some clauses that would apply.
Overriding all of that is some basic labor laws at Fed and State level. This is a good summary of his position:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fired-google-employee-wants-sue-185826744.html

 

All the hell James Damore did was point out factually that men and woman are different
different on how the interact with others how they solve problems their strengths and weaknesses of both men and women how you cant put both in the same box and expect the same outcomes those are facts
when you say men and women are equal doesn't mean they are the same and shouldn't be treated the same equally important yes but the same no

 

But I don't think that was the essence of his claim. He was talking about trends in large populations indicating preferences for certain roles, so it focussed more on motivations than capabilities. One of his recommendations to address the gender gap was programmer "pairing", so the job would be less individualistic and so more appealing to more women.

I really think you should read the memo. It has been sorely misrepresented. He specifically said that the data could not apply to individuals, but to populations en masse.

Look at the Tech industry, it is totally dominated by men. But programmers were originally almost all female. Something changed in the culture of the tech industry between 1940 and 1970 to make the role more appealing to more men and less appealing to more women. What?

The answer to the gender gap is in addressing the tech culture, not bald numeric quotas. But what to address?

 

Article: "But any case would be complicated, in part due to Damore’s identity as a white man"
How would that make any difference? He'd didn't get fired because he is a white man, but if he did, it shouldn't be any different than someone being fired for being a black female.

 

Its complicated because he is suing for discrimination. Three things:
1. the laws were created to enforce against a white patriachy, so its possible that there are semantic hurdles built in to the wording (such as using the term "minorities", which in North America would exclude white males)
2. the courts may not accept the broadening of the application to white males for fear of igniting a large number of spurious or opportunistic claims
3. The situation is that he was directly criticising an (purportedly) anti-discrimination initiative, so a counter-claim might be postured by feminists to make it a three-way tussle, or laws may contradict each-other.

 

Is this a fact?

 

You can't say that these days without getting fired. If the facts will not agree with political correctness, it's the facts that are wrong. Same thing happens with statements about racial IQ differences. Everyone is the same and god help you if you point out that's not true.

 

Why isn't the left up in arms at GOOGLE? One of the very 'patriarchal' companies who are part of the problem of not employing women in tech? That's the irony of this story that I love. The left is fully behind Google for firing this guy, but they probably shouldn't be aligning themselves with Google! I think that the Google CEO knows very well the differences between men and women, but of course he can't say that he knows it. Google is a tech business, so they need to employ engineers based on MERIT! If they are trying to recruit more women and its not working then the evidence to support this memo's claim is that it hasn't worked!

 

A legal fact? no, it hasn't been tested yet. Just that this is the kind of thing that can get in the way of a successful suit.

 

"Oookay. So a Google software engineer writes about how, on average, women are subject to “higher anxiety” and “lower stress tolerance,” which caused several women at Google to feel so stressed and anxious that they had to stay home from work. If Google is going to fire Damore for “advancing harmful gender stereotypes,” shouldn’t it fire those women, as well?"
http://thefederalist.com/2017/08/09...ng-sterotypes-employees-stayed-home-cry-memo/

 

Personally I'm rather enjoying this whole saga. Watching the media and others warp his words into literally the opposite of what he said is just comedy gold.

 

Nope. Women are being given shots in order to hit a quota. They always had a shot but so few were interested or qualified. When the shift happened recently and women are popping out of the woodwork, the only thought is where the hell were you the last 15 yrs when everyone else was busting their ass? "Why should she get a kick to the front of the line", but that's EXACTLY what's happening. But I'm sure you'll answer with "they were NEVER given a fair shot" and I'll call BS on that EVERY SINGLE TIME. If you wanted the shot where were you straight out of college? Nope. You weren't there. You were studying history or English.

THIS is the conversation and one side doesn't want to be honest. If we want equal
numbers and diversity the people have to show the **** up. Like in tech, or gaming or engineering or whatever. You can't all show up late in the game and expect to be where all the guys were when they've been doing it since they were in grade school. Sorry. Back of the ****ing line unless you truly are a whizz. Then no one really cares because you truly are better. The thing is women are NOT better on average or they would already be there like in other fields where they outnumber men. There are a lot more men so there will obviously be more men in that field. The few, the exception, are NOT the rule. Where are all the male elementary school teachers? Oh, that's not important is it!

The NBA has a distinct lack of white people. Why? If we need diversity It's time to start making some space. Fair? You want to truthful or do you want to be coddled? Some are BETTER than others at some things. It's basic math. When more of X enter a field there will be more qualified X working in that field. We just aren't allowed to have that conversation or else you get fired like the Google guy.

 

I do hope that this sacking does open some space for dialogue on the issue. Seems to be polarizing at the moment though.

 

It's their company. If they want to be flaming leftists then I as a conservative wouldn't work there.

 

Is there at will employment in California?

Besides, Federal law makes it illegal to fire someone for advocating for better working conditions.

 

Yeah, this story is just filled with glorious irony!

 

Yeah, bail from the sinking ship I say. Its become too big, corporatized and introspective. IBM mark II

 

This is a good article - 4 scientists respond to the memo.
http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/

All four back Damore.

Most interestig quote:

This dogma relies on two core assumptions:

• The human sexes and races have exactly the same minds, with precisely identical distributions of traits, aptitudes, interests, and motivations; therefore, any inequalities of outcome in hiring and promotion must be due to systemic sexism and racism;
• The human sexes and races have such radically different minds, backgrounds, perspectives, and insights, that companies must increase their demographic diversity in order to be competitive...

The obvious problem is that these two core assumptions are diametrically opposed.​

 

DO you think a brave comedian would pick it up? How about Colbert or the like? Fat Chance. They are intellectual cowards. Funny, but cowards.

 

And if you read the study, he does not do what you said. From the memo:

Women, on average, have more:

• Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).
• These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.

• Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320

There are no citations to large studies and he is generalizing to all women. Also, to go from a certain personality trait to expressed behavior is quite a speculative leap. Finally, the studies that show these personality differences are usually not replicable, nor are they in goid journals. So to summarize, he did generalize, he made speculative claims and he did not cite where he got his information on women's personality traits. Thus, this is just his prejudiced opinion. Science works through careful experimental manipulation and building on previous work. It does not work on pure speculation and prejudices.

 

This is a snippet from a letter from Facebook on this issue.

"Yet today, women are on track to fill just 3 percent of these jobs, despite 74 percent of girls expressing interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in middle school."

Now read that carefully. I guarantee most do NOT. Interest in middle school it says. NOT high school. Not interest upon graduation. Not interest in college. Middle school. So who is to blame for girls becoming less interested? Men? Oh cmon!!!

Expressing interest? Who gives a flying **** about interest. I was interested in a lot things. But I had an interest in film and design when I was 4 yrs old and it carried through my entire life which led to my lifelong chosen career. I knew for long as I could remember. It wasn't just an interest I checked on a questionnaire. It was a passion since I understood how a camera worked and I could make my toys move on their own through stop motion. Guess what? NO GIRLS were interested in it. There were some in high school but they were fly be nighters and more into the acting, not the technical production side.

There were plenty of girls in college in film and broadcasting but again, it always seemed like they were doing it because they didn't really know what they wanted. They were artistic or creative but they were NOT like the guys who's lives revolved around film. Now a days it's different. It's OK for girls to be into it as much as we were growing up back in the 80s. Care to guess how most girls treated the film nerds in high school then? Oh you already know. So when they claim it's hard for them? Guess what. YOU made it hard for me. I have no empathy for you. You're what we called, posers. Wannabes. You wanted the rewards without ever putting in the time. And I know deep down those thoughts are wandering around in every guys head who's been there and done that. So when they see certain people bitching and moaning, they're thinking, "where were YOU?" Were you building the FX studios? NOPE. Were you writing the code for all the software? Nope. You weren't there. Not in any significant numbers that is. You want to be there now though. That's fine. Go build your own FX studio. Go build you own Google or MS or Amazon or Apple. Were you in the garages putting motherboards together by hand? NOPE!!!! I saw these guys growing up. NO GIRLS!!! Of course there were girls somewhere but let's get real. THey wernt leading the way. If they were they would be there in higher numbers. You can't fake being good In tech so those that are good actually get noticed. You think most guys want to hear you whine about not getting your shot? Most
Won't speak up because if they do they get fired don't they

I understand the bias. I've been there. I see it today. Then again. I saw the bias back then too.