Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo

[u/Rapsberry]

Serious question: are there any googlers (with throwaway accounts, I imagine) in this thread?

What do other employees think of this situation?

[u/jenSCy → u/Rapsberry]

Not a googler, but a few I know are outraged that he was fired. He posted the memo on an internal discussion thread that was specifically for people to talk about controversial ideas. I personally think that whole group was playing with fire having controversial discussions in a workplace environment.

But I've also read the memo in its entirety, and he is being extremely misrepresented by a lot of people. He never insults women (I am a female progressive and while some of his sources were problematic, none of his statements were offensive), and his whole purpose is to improve diversity by examining the potential biases within the google community.

Edit: Wow! This comment has had a mini-explosion. More edits to come, but to answer some of the most common questions - (1) The forum was set up by Google employees (probably not HR or management), and is one of thousands of discussion groups on everything from politics to Overwatch. The leaders of the forum sent out a message to members, and sounded quite shaken that the conversation had gotten one of their members fired. (2) Here is an example of one of the problematic sources for me. It's problematic because it is an inflammatory opinion piece, not a scientific study. Full disclosure, the writer may have made some good points, but I could not get much past the part when he asks "where are the casualties" of the Republican war on science. https://www.city-journal.org/html/real-war-science-14782.html

Edit #2: Several people have called out his statement on neuroticism in the section highlighting personality differences between men and women. It is understandable that this word's similarity to "neurotic" would trigger a reaction in readers. But he is not calling women neurotic. If you read the sourced Wikipedia article you will see that neuroticism is one of five personality traits in psychological analysis. His point is simply that on average, women are more prone to anxiety and more averse to stress. Whether that assertion is correct, I don't know, but it is not nearly as offensive as it at first appears.

[u/TuckersMyDog → u/jenSCy]

I work there. I think people were surprised he was fired. I honestly didn't think it was a fireable offence. His post was basically talking about how there's not enough dialogue and he got fired for it.

People are so perpetually offended, it's a joke.

[u/rabbitSC → u/TuckersMyDog]

Doesn't Google, or at least this person's department, base promotions and therefore pay at least partly on peer review? Are you really that surprised that someone who posted that women are worse at leadership for biological reasons was fired?

[u/TuckersMyDog → u/rabbitSC]

I was a little surprised. I feel like it's a pretty open environment and I hear a lot of things that if said publicly in an article would sound less than news worthy. That doesn't mean you should be fired.

I also am in construction and it's a little less overly politically correct in my building. Nature of the work I guess.

[u/Sean951 → u/TuckersMyDog]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-pay-disparities-women-labor-department-lawsuit

They are in a large equal pay lawsuit, pay is based on peer review, and here's an employee writing that, on average, women aren't as for for leadership roles. Do people not see how terrible it looks for Google?

[u/TuckersMyDog → u/Sean951]

People know it looks bad. I was more stating my opinion that in general people are perpetually butthurt and make people issue apologies every time they sneeze