Yesterday, Google fired an employee, James Damore, who had published an "anti-diversity" manifesto. In so doing, Google has invoked a variant of the Streisand effect to ensure that:
Damore's manifesto will be read far and wide.
Google applicants and employees will likely self-select to align with the company's dogma, and those with more conservative views may either go elsewhere, or stay in the closet during their employment.
Let me state outright that, though "I am not a lawyer", everything I have read suggests that Google is well within their rights in terminating Damore's employment. The laws in the US appear to provide great latitude to employers in firing employees, including wearing orange-colored garments, being too attractive, or not being sufficiently Christlike. Moreover, though I disagree with some of Damore's positions, neither he nor I appear to be in a position to make any more than a principled opinion based on anecdotal experience (and some hastily drawn citations) on some of his core positions.
My comments are thus exclusively focused on my own opinions of the manifesto and Google's reaction to it. Please note that the version of the manifesto that is publicly available on gizmodo.com appears to be stripped of references.
The Backstory
James Damore's screed, titled Google's Ideological Echo Chamber, was apparently first shared on an internal Google network, and then leaked to the broader public. In response, Google's new Vice President of Diversity, Integrity and Governance Danielle Brown responded quickly about the manifesto that "it's not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages." Subsequently, Damore was apparently fired.
I have been cynical of high-level diversity officers, whose main job appears to be to superficially protect their company from equal opportunity lawsuits by enforcing felicitous dogma, in the vein of yesteryear's Soviet political commissars. Indeed, Google is currently facing an investigation by the US Department of Labor for pay equity concerns, and may need such an officer to help shield it. Still, there is a legitimate question about whether Damore's manifesto crossed a line. Let's look at some of his core positions.
Anecdotals
Damore makes use of a number of anecdotal positions in his piece. Perhaps the original version has supporting citations, but I can only comment on what is publicly available:
"man and women biologically differ in many ways ..." It is hard to argue with this, and, indeed, society actively acknowledges this by having different sports teams for men and women, and gender-based requirements for physically demanding jobs. Indeed, one could argue that the historical public-sphere dominance of men that we are now trying to challenge is wide-scale evidence of gender-based differences.
"Women, on average, have more ... openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas... [are] gregarious ... [and] neurotic." There are roughly 2.5 billion women on the planet, and it is thus hard to understand such a sweeping statement, which plays on old stereotypes, without, at least, a citation. Perhaps the author was basing these conclusions on a 2007 study on gender differences, but that study was targeted at adults over 65 and other results in the field seem to point to contradictory conclusions.
"Status is the primary metric that men are judged on ...." In this case, the author points to a footnote relating this to heterosexual romantic relationships, perhaps referring to this less conclusive study of adolescents, but there is a large gap from romance to judgement as a whole.
Suggestions
Some of Damore's suggestions for improving Google appear to be less controversial than his anecdotes:
"Stop alienating conservatives" - this is arguably a valid point for the country as a whole. Those who believe in diversity should espouse viewpoint diversity no less than racial or gender diversity. Indeed, it was not too long ago that the US was violently founded on exactly such principles by those who were alienated from the British crown.
"Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races" - this is, of course, related to the much broader question of affirmative action, on which much has been written. There is some, vague evidence that girls in same-sex schools do better in math, but, absent strong scientific evidence of benefit, preferential treatment based on gender and race is discriminatory, and contrary to some professional ethics.
"Be open about the science of human nature" - in the past, the focus was on equality of opportunity rather than equality of ability. The first is a Western ideal that is essential for a meritocracy, the second is patently false.
Conclusion
Though apparently well within their rights, I believe that Google has made a mistake in firing James Damore. With a revenue near the Gross Domestic Product of Iceland, the company wields economic power (and moral responsibility) equivalent to a small country. If it does not respect freedom of speech, it leaves us little solace that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."
The silver lining is that, in so doing, they have opened an important conversation on the nature and value of diversity in the workplace.