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Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

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Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#181

Post by neveroffensive »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #171
defertoreptar wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His cardinal sin was saying that men and women are biologically different. He could've said a lot, but as soon as he tried to give a biological explanation for why girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer toy cars, he entered taboo territory. It's a thought crime because it implies that cultural influences aren't 100% responsible for why more men are interested in STEM than women.

No, he tried to use unrelated data on the biological differences between men and women to justify why Google shouldn't try to reach out more to women to diversify their workforce.

This is also a bit of a miss-characterization. He tried to use data on the biological difference between men and women which _may_ be unrelated to justify why Google shouldn't forcefully diversify their workforce if it dose so at the cost of hiring the best people.

Edit:

I don't think that either side in this debate has actually met the burden of proof necessary to conclusively say that biological differences do/don't correlate on any level.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#182

Post by [deleted] »

T2_t2 wrote: post #93
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 f…

[deleted]

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#183

Post by ankushnarula »

tptacek wrote: post #138
ankushnarula wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a narrow and incomplete reading of Damore's memo based on prejudice. Damore's description that on average men and women are different is not itself discriminatory or harmful since it's backed up by quite a lot of biological and psychometric science. The question should have been "What is Damore advocating?". And if they read the entire document then it would be clear that Damore was suggesting methods t…

No, the Advice Memo repeatedly notes that much of the memo is not objectionable. The problem Damore faced with the NLRB is that Google was careful to terminate him specifically and exclusively for the parts of the memo that would advocate policies problematic under EEO laws. They read the whole memo (and indeed summarize a lot of it, not just the prejudicial bits).

I read it. And I'm even more skeptical now:

> ~ statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women's heightened neuroticism and men's prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding~ effort to cloak~ comments with "scientific" references and analysis, and notwtihstanding "not all women" disclaimers.

"Effort to cloak" and quotation marks around "scientific" are giving something away about the author.

> Moreover, the Charging Party reasonably should have known that the memorandum would likely be disseminated further, even beyond the workplace.

Damore "reasonably should have known" someone else was going to violate workplace confidentiality and code of conduct by leaking the document to the media? This seems like a failure of the employer not the employee.

> Once the memorandum was shared publicly, at least two female engineering candidates withdrew from consideration and explicitly named the memo as their reason for doing so.

This is the evidentiary component of the argument - which pivots on the not-so-reasonable "reasonably should have known" assertion.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#184

Post by debt »

skissane wrote: post #48
sidlls wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having "conservative viewpoints" is not a protected class.

> 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…

This isn’t what those things are saying.

The first is preventing rules and regulations that guide the political beliefs of employees.

The second is a law against threatening to fire an employees for their political beliefs.

Discrimination is something totally different.

Damore was fired for espousing gender discrimination; again, because gender discrimination is very illegal.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#185

Post by throwaway5752 »

IWeldMelons wrote: post #158
georgemcbay wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Curious, why do you believe in that? Have you evaluated the evidence and come to that conclusion, or is it a priori for you? Curious why you question his belief? All of the half-way reputable studies I've ever heard of have either concluded that there is no difference in male/female intelligence or that there are small differences in certain silos, with men scoring slightly higher on average in visuospatial while w…

It is still unclear though, why a belief in lower or higher aptitude of a particular group (as a whole) for a some specific type of activity should lead to any kind of discrimination. I realize, it often does, but attempt to silence the research and potentially, the truth, for some political reason does not sound good.

Nobody is silencing any research, unless you think broadly circulating a memo at a tech company constitutes "research".

It is legal to research pornography, but try to view it at a lot of companies in the office.

Context is important. He sent it out at work, not to arxiv.org.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#186

Post by manfredo »

georgemcbay wrote: post #125
darawk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

> Curious, why do you believe in that? Have you evaluated the evidence and come to that conclusion, or is it a priori for you? Curious why you question his belief? All of the half-way reputable studies I've ever heard of have either concluded that there is no difference in male/female intelligence or that there are small differences in certain silos, with men scoring slightly higher on average in visuospatial while w…

The memo did not claim that women were less intelligent. It claimed that women _prefer_ to work in fields other than tech. This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. It also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the extreme.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#187

Post by ameister14 »

darawk wrote: post #142
fra wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... absolute innate equivalence ..." As was already stated in this thread, this is the null hypothesis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397321

The comment you linked states the opposite.

I think you may have misread it.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#188

Post by tptacek »

leereeves wrote: post #173
tptacek wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was terminated at Google's discretion under at-will employment, the same standard that might allow you to be fired for coming to work with blue hair. He sought relief under an exception to at-will, the NLRA, which protects concerted action to improve working conditions. The NLRB determined that because the substance of his action involved requests that Google might reasonably determine would be problematic under E…

IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. I…

It doesn't matter not because the NLRB is settling the science for itself, but because the NLRB doesn't want to intervene in cases where employers enforce anti-harassment policies. There's a case history about this, cited in the memo.

Remember, the presumption at law is that Google has the right to fire employees for virtually no reason (conservatives should find this congenial). Damore was attempting to avail himself of an exception to that rule.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#189

Post by [deleted] »

ubernostrum wrote: post #180
leereeves wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, the Advice Memo's conclusion is summarized by this sentence: > Damore's statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers. I…

Why is this chilling? There are many much-less-disputed things which are obviously factually true but which, nonetheless, could put you on the hook for harassment depending on how, why, and how often you say them. For example, suppose I have a co-worker who is an ardent believer in the cause of the southern states during the US Civil War. It is factually and indisputably true that the southern states lost that war, a…

[deleted]

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#190

Post by happyguy43 »

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…

This is well argued but some of the assumptions are false.

1) Damore never argued men were better suited to software engineering than women.

2) Damore never argued for google to violate EEO laws, and in fact it’s the opposite.

It’s very sad to me that there is such widespread misinterpretation of Damore’s nuance in his memo. In every possible factual way it’s a pro-diversity memo, but because it cites research on the average personality differences amongst men and women (which are 100% true), he gets crucified as a bigot and an anti-diversity zealot.

Furthermore, when it comes to matters such as these, “belief” should not play a substantial role. We’ve already proven that men and women don’t differ much on intelligence. No need to believe one way or another.

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