The Google memo: how an engineer’s manifesto caused a diversity uproar – The Verge

James Damore’s labor complaint against Google was completely shut down

2018-02-16T17:39:46-05:00

Google didn't violate labor laws by firing engineer James Damore for a memo criticizing the company's diversity program, according to a recently disclosed letter from the US National Labor Relations Board. The lightly redacted statement is written by Jayme Sophir, associate general counsel of the NLRB's division of advice; it dates to January, but was released yesterday, according to Law.com. Sophir concludes that while some parts of Damore's memo were legally protected by workplace regulations, "the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected."

Damore fi …

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai says he does not regret firing James Damore

2018-01-19T17:20:12-05:00

Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded today to the firing of employee James Damore over his controversial memo on workplace diversity, stating that while he does not regret the decision, he regrets that people misunderstood it as a politically motivated event. Speaking in a live conversation with journalist and Recode co-founder Kara Swisher, MSNBC host Ari Melber, and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in San Francisco, Pichai said that the decision to fire Damore was about ensuring women at Google felt like the company was committed to creating a welcoming environment.

"I regret that people misunderstand that we may have made this for a political be …

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James Damore’s lawsuit partner says Google is dominated by a racist, man-hating ‘hate group’

2018-01-12T16:18:13-05:00

David Gudeman, one of two ex-Google engineers suing the company for alleged discrimination against conservative white men, says the company is dominated by a "hate group" illegally promoting "racism and misandry." Gudeman and his co-plaintiff James Damore filed the lawsuit earlier this week, but he expanded on his motivations in a blog post, illuminating the reasoning behind the suit.

"I don't hate Google, and I certainly don't hate the people who work there," writes Gudeman. "I wouldn't want this suit to give people a bad opinion of Googlers, but, honestly, they brought this on themselves for tolerating the hatred, racism, and misandry of …

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Google executives stopped employees discussing diversity and hiring, claims former engineer

2018-01-12T05:46:48-05:00

A memo written by a former Google engineer claims that senior executives at the company intervened to stop employees discussing matters involving diversity and hiring policies.

The memo, written in 2016 and shared publicly this week on Google Docs, is the work of former Google security engineer Cory Altheide, according to a report from Gizmodo. Altheide was employed by Google between 2010 and 2016, and says he chose to leave after confrontations with executives and HR over the posting of pro-diversity comments and articles in internal discussion groups.

The memo is titled "What happened to Cory?" and was originally written as an explanatio …

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James Damore sues Google for allegedly discriminating against conservative white men

2018-01-08T13:59:21-05:00

The author of the controversial memo that upended Google in August is suing the company, alleging that white, male conservatives are systematically discriminated against by Google.

Lawsuit filed today in Santa Clara Superior Court

James Damore was fired as an engineer after the manifesto, which questioned the benefits of diversity programs and suggested women may be biologically inferior engineers, was widely passed around the company. In a new lawsuit, he and another fired engineer claim that "employees who expressed views deviating from the majority view at Google on political subjects raised in the workplace and relevant to Google's emplo …

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Charlottesville has sidelined a nationwide anti-Google protest

2017-08-16T11:22:19-04:00

A nine-city protest against Google for firing engineer James Damore is being called off after last weekend's white supremacist rally. "March on Google" organizer Jack Posobiec pushed the event back by "a few weeks" this morning, due to what he called "credible alt-left terrorist threats" and "malicious and false statements" connecting the march with far-right politics.

The March on Google was announced on August 9th, shortly after Google fired Damore for circulating an anti-diversity treatise. But it's been derailed by the "Unite the Right" rally that took place just a few days later, where a white supremacist allegedly rammed his car throu …

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After canceled town hall meeting, Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at girls’ coding event

2017-08-10T22:29:50-04:00

Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai, speaking at a coding event for girls happening at Google's campus today, emphasized the importance of engineers "building products for everyone in the world," and said that in order to do that, "we need to have people internally who represent the world in totality."

"I want you to know there's a place for you in this industry," Pichai said to the teams of young women who were finalists in a months-long app-building competition. "There's a place for you at Google. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You belong here, and we need you."

Pichai's remarks were especially noteworthy because of their …

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Google town hall meeting canceled after days of online harassment

2017-08-10T19:49:55-04:00

A highly-anticipated town hall meeting inside Google was canceled today due to the employees' concerns around online harassment. The all-hands meeting was intended to address the controversy around an internal memo that argued women were underrepresented in tech due to innate biological differences. "Googlers are writing in, concerned about their safety and worried they may be 'outed' publicly for asking a question in the Town Hall," wrote CEO Sundar Pichai in a letter to employees.

The cancellation of the town hall meeting caps off nearly a week of escalating anxiety around the targeted harassment of various Google employees. Very shortly …

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Fired Google engineer compares high-paid tech job to Soviet forced labor

2017-08-10T17:19:37-04:00

New profile picture of James Damore

Former Google engineer James Damore, who was fired for distributing a memo suggesting women are not biologically suited for certain types of work, is now branding himself as a brave truth teller. In what appears to be his new Twitter account, Damore can be seen wearing a shirt with the word "Goolag," a play on "Google" that means to suggest the Silicon Valley search company is something like the infamous Soviet camps where prisoners were worked and starved to death as part of one of the 20th century's worst genocides.

Google, which provides free meals, massages, and fitness classes at its Mountain View, California headquarters, pays enginee …

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Former Google employee has ‘no regrets’ over incendiary memo

2017-08-10T08:04:10-04:00

Former Google engineer James Damore says he has no regrets after circulating a controversial memo he wrote concerning the tech giant's diversity policies. Damore was fired on Monday after a tumultuous 72-hours that saw his manifesto go viral online, with the document asserting that the gender gap between men and women in technology was due to biological reasons.

"It's hard to regret it, just because I do believe that I'm trying to make Google and the world in general a better place, by not confining us to our ideological echo chambers where only one side of the story can be heard," Damore told Bloomberg. "I'm definitely hurt … It really fee …

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