Former Google engineer James Damore has sued the tech giant, alleging that Google discriminates against conservatives, whites, and males in an effort to increase diversity at the company — and that employees who identify as conservative, white, or male, are made to feel inferior.
Damore was fired from Google after a memo he authored on the subject of male versus female engineers, went viral. In the memo, Damore argued that intrinsic differences between the male and female mind left men more able to handle the technical requirements of software engineering.
The opinion was, of course, controversial. But rather than engaging in dialogue about the science behind Damore’s theory, Google caved to crowd pressure and dismissed Damore who, subsequently, became a vocal critic of gender equality policies inside Silicon Valley.
Now, Damore says, he wants Google to pay for encouraging discrimination within its ranks.
In a lawsuit filed in California on Monday, Damore alleges that “employees who expressed views deviating from the majority view at Google on political subjects raised in the workplace and relevant to Google’s employment policies and its business, such as ‘diversity’ hiring policies, ‘bias sensitivity,’ or ‘social justice,’ were/are singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google, in violation of their legal rights.”
Damore insists that the company itself encourages this behavior, mandating that employees ascribe to the “Googly way” — a set of behavioral restrictions and policies that codify the company’s commitment to “bias sensitivity.”
He also suggests that Google employees demonstrated a clear “anti-conservative bias,” and along with his complaint, he’s filed a list of emails that allegedly include evidence of Google’s cultural derision toward libertarian ideals.
Damore apparently intends the lawsuit to be class action. A second plaintiff is already attached to the complaint and according to CNet, Damore’s lawyers anticipate adding more. The class action segment of the suit centers around Google’s hiring policies, which Damore and the other plaintiffs (and potential plaintiffs) claim is openly discriminatory in violation of equal protection.
“Google employs illegal hiring quotas to fill its desired percentages of women and favored minority candidates, and openly shames managers of business units who fail to meet their quotas — in the process, openly denigrating male and Caucasian employees as less favored than others,” the complaint reads.
Google has not yet released a statement on the lawsuit. Strangely, though, this case does mean Google is being attacked from both sides in the “women’s equality” debate, in light of the #metoo movement. Just last week, several female Google employees alleged that they do not receive the same pay as comparably employed male Googlers.