> Possibly. I do think it is likely that she isn't fired if she was a white male. In my experience, people have more patience with people who are in their "in-group". This goes beyond race/gender -- just look at sports fandom for an example. Isn't it odd that players for the team you cheer for can do no wrong, but as soon as they're traded then they start doing a bunch of bad stuff, even the stuff they did while on your team actually now looks kind of bad. In the tech industry role/team/company/race/gender are probably the biggest in-group delineations.
I think you're right about her not being in the in-group. But the in-group had nothing to do with race or gender but instead was about whether or not she played ball with Google executives. It seems like she was a team player with regards to people she worked with directly in AI ethics research, but definitely was not a corporate team player.
I think in this specific circumstance a white male would have been easier to fire. It's a much worse look to fire a woman of color investigating AI ethics (A lot of which is revolves around racial and gender bias) than a white male.
> Yes they do. The most common ultimatum is given before employment, where candidates will often give a minimum salary/benefits they will take for the job. I've seen and even been involved in these negotiations where a candidate states that they will not go below this offer, period. And then we counter with a number below that but provide some other incentive we think may counter it.
When I used the word ultimatum I wasn't referring to pre-employment salary negotiations, which this most certainly wasn't.
> There are other ultimatums I've seen in the workplace. For example, "I can't work with XYZ or I'm leaving the team". I don't think I've ever seen the response come back as, "good luck finding a new team". It's always been to dive deeper into the relationship.
I think there is a subtle difference between delivering an ultimatum and communicating the minimum needs for a job. "You need to stop requiring me to travel or I quit" will be treated very differently by most employers than "I talked with my wife, and due to us having a new born, I don't I think I can fit travel into my life any longer. Is there any way to continue this job without travel?". Judging by her generally assertive nature (which is a valuable asset in a researcher and activist, but can be a liability when navigating corporate America) and the other message she sent out to her co-workers I imagine her email was phrased more like the former than the latter.
> I can imagine it being listed as a firing offense in some handbook. I can also imagine that others who have written damning emails have gotten away with no more than a slap on the wrist (or less).
Even without an employee handbook, this is incredibly unprofessional behavior. Telling co-workers to stop doing certain types of work and apply external pressure to your employer seems unfathomable to me? If I was really angry or drunk and sent out a message like that I would be afraid of losing my job. If I also submitted my resignation at the same time I would just assume they would accept it unless they had a very important reason they couldn't let me go.
I think if she had just submitted her resignation/ultimatum letter or just sent out that withering letter she'd still be employed at Google. I've seen two people act that unprofessional and one was immediately fired and the other was told "This is you're first and second strike. You think we can't replace you. We can, and if you do this again we will." And those unprofessional outbursts weren't in writing, they were just people being unprofessional because they were stressed and frustrated.