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Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

bloomberg.com

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Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#91

Post by [deleted] »

guyzero wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

"Damore's memo was about organizing against discrimination of conservative viewpoints --- a phenomenon that is almost certainly real in SFBA tech!" Only if you equate sexism and racism with conservatism.

[deleted]

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#92

Post by Analemma_ »

naveen99 wrote: post #43
tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

> absolute innate equivalence Is hacker aptitude some kind of conserved quantity that is conserved over sexes based on some natural symmetry ? Why not just say, absolutely pretended equivalence.

The null hypothesis is to assume there is innate equivalence; the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate otherwise and the attempts I've seen so far are lacking.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#93

Post by T2_t2 »

tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

You seem to understand this better than me, so can you explain a few things to me I find (as a non-American) confusing?

> The NLRB turned down Damore's complaint

Can you explain where you got this idea from? Not this article, because it states several contradictory or non-commital things such as:

> Damore withdrew his complaint in January

And

> "a federal agency lawyer concluded."

And

> an associate general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board wrote in a six-page memo disclosed Thursday

Is this just an opinion, or an actual ruling? In other words, is this a PR exercise by the NRLB, or is it an official ruling in some way?

https://nlrb.gov/case/32-CA-203891 appears to be the case - AFAICT as the dates lineup with the withdrawl statement, and https://www.google.com.au/search?q=site%3Anlrb.gov+james+dam... shows this as the only link. As a non-American, I'm not going to file a FOI request, so I have no idea what any of this is, or how to find the memo that Bloomberg quotes.

Can you (or anyone else) shed any actual, source not third party light on this?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#94

Post by stevenwoo »

tptacek wrote: post #46
majormajor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do thing? Not living in the Bay Area, the tech industry there seems like a hotbed of privatized funding, privatized infrastructure (e.g. employee provided busses for commutes), and privatized communities (on-campus lunch, recreation, etc). Often with a strong opinion on the proper function of government: that it shouldn't restrict the actions of their companies. That all sounds just a…

Could be. Could be an owners/labor distinction too. I've never talked to a bigco developer who felt like they'd have career problems expressing liberal political views. But I have several friends, and have talked to a lot of other people, who have shared concerns about expressing conservative views. It's anecdata, but there's a lot of anecdotes to be found about it.

I've only worked here about 20 years in smaller companies but had plenty of coworkers who were pretty loud and proud libertarians or conservative Republicans, especially around Clinton's impeachment or election time, and guys were wearing their red MAGA caps into the office where I was contracting after the 2016 election.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#95

Post by tptacek »

Analemma_ wrote: post #92
naveen99 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> absolute innate equivalence Is hacker aptitude some kind of conserved quantity that is conserved over sexes based on some natural symmetry ? Why not just say, absolutely pretended equivalence.

The null hypothesis is to assume there is innate equivalence; the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate otherwise and the attempts I've seen so far are lacking.

Either way, my statement was a cards-on-the-table disclaimer, not an invitation to litigate the point.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#96

Post by ghaff »

rbanffy wrote: post #82
skissane wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having "conservative viewpoints" is not a protected class. In California, it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against an employee on the basis of their political beliefs [1], so to that extent particular political ideologies (including conservatism) can be viewed as protected classes. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... and https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_dis…

Fair question: if one identifies as conservative to the extent as regarding women as less capable than men, is that still protected?

I wouldn't consider that viewpoint, as you describe it, a very conservative one.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#97

Post by majormajor »

tntn wrote: post #85
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm really curious what conservative viewpoints people espouse that they feel they've been discriminated against for. I think this is a far more useful inquiry (i.e. what specific points) than generalized ideologies. What viewpoints, indeed? Many of the ones I hear from my self-described conservative friends and the public personalities they follow fall into these categories (my word choice, not them, I'm paraphras…

Is #3 an example of fear or "thinly-veiled contempt"? Seems to express something more like "I believe in moral absolutes" and "some things are sacred."

Very few people are able to put together a fact- and logic-based argument for why questions of morality like that should be questions of legality. E.g. why it's more like murder or theft or assault and less like lying or adultery. It's perfectly possible to think homosexuality is a sin and not think it should be illegal, and to treat homosexuals as perfectly decent humans who you would interact with in all the same ways you would anyone else. To a Christian, after all, everyone is a sinner.

That significantly undermines those causes to secular listeners. Without being able to do so, it usually sounds simply fear- or dislike- based. Much more like prejudice than like a sound basis for policy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003EO8ER0 for more, from the inside, on the withdrawal by the American evangelical community from intellectual sphere. The right's "PC" instincts - shout down and kick out the heretics - has crippled their ability to convince those who don't already agree. The left is in danger of getting to the same place, but it's hilariously ironic how evangelicals don't recognize the mote in their own eye on this one.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#98

Post by darawk »

tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

> But to the extent that it attempted to organize around changes to Google management that might (might) themselves violate EEO laws (for instance, any kind of official recognition that men are better suited to software development at Google than women), they were not.

Was he trying to do that, though? As I understand it, he was protesting policies that sought to actively promote diversity. EEO laws require no such active promotion, afaik. He fell all over himself to be clear that he was not saying that Google should prefer hiring men, or that they should restrict women to specific roles within the company. He was questioning Google's active efforts to specifically recruit women above the background level that would otherwise apply. Whether or not this is a good idea is certainly up for debate, but it does not, to my knowledge, violate EEO laws to merely not actively and specifically target women for recruitment.

> who believes strongly in the absolute innate equivalence in aptitude for our profession between men and women

Curious, why do you believe in that? Have you evaluated the evidence and come to that conclusion, or is it a priori for you?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

orblivion wrote: post #13
tptacek wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is the opposite of what the NLRB found. It's not quite as simple as political affiliation being protected (although in California it might be), but rather that under the NLRA, you can't be fired for the act of organizing to improve workplace conditions. The Advice Memo explicitly states in several places that had the Damore memo not advocated in favor of stereotypes against women --- something that is itself…

I suppose he could have ignored the question of the distribution of men and the distribution of women, and just focused on his suggestions on how to make a more productive and enjoyable situation for more "agreeable" (that's a technical term) personality types. But this is all in context of Google's focus on trying to improve the gender disparity, and his memo is directly in reference to that, if one would only accep…

The beliefs aren't “beyond the pale”; using workplace resources to communicate them within the workplace in contravention to a workplace anti-harassment policy, which if inconsistently enforced poses substantial legal danger for the employer, is, however, not a prohibited grounds for dismissal from at-will employment.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#100

Post by ggm »

What I think of his views (I disagree) is not germaine to the question: was it sensible to write and publish? It was not. That I disagree with his premise and polemic makes it easier for me to align desire and reality, but the reality of the situation doesn't change because of my desires: he was stupid to publish and Google were within their rights to fire him.

All the other observed comments about liberal/conservative/libertarian views are frankly not very interesting. The bottom line to me is that he didn't have a strong enough claim to unfair dismissal.

Court did its job. Move on.

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