After writing a memo that stated that Google was being discriminatory to the straight conservative white men by promoting racial and gender diversity, former Google employee James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against the tech company, reiterating that Google discriminates against.. you guessed it…straight white conservative men, NPR reports.
Damore was fired in August, shortly after writing a memo that outlined everything from what he saw as biological differences between men and women to why having race and gender based programs are, as he said, “ discriminatory practices” and are “both unfair and divisive.”
According to Damore, the biological differences between women and men dictate that women have a lower drive for higher ranking positions and so they are not cut out for the tech world. Unless, of course, Google were to add more social or artistic roles for women who ar,e as Damore said, “directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas.” Or Google could even encourage part-time work, because how can a woman be expected to thrive while bearing the load of working a full day?
The whole memo reads as satire — which is probably why Damore said in his lawsuit that he was laughed at before being fired.
In his quest for justice, Tweedledee is joined by Tweedledum, more commonly known as David Gudeman, a former Google engineer who was fired after an altercation with a Muslim coworker in which, the suit claims, Google HR fired him for accusing the colleague of terrorism because of their religion.
The two plan on proving their case with 80 pages of apparently “offensive” and “discriminatory” posts made by co-workers, including a Kermit meme posted by an employee about how Trump supporters are deplorable.
The lawsuit and Damore himself overshadow the actual discrimination women and people of color face in the workplace. “The Elephant in the Valley” is a tech study done in 2015 of senior-level women in Silicon Valley. The study found that 66% of the women “felt excluded from key social/networking opportunities because of gender” and that 60% of the women in tech reported “unwanted sexual advances.”
Women Who Tech surveyed 950 tech employees and found that 44% of the people of color who responded experienced racial harassment, and that 50% of these respondents said they had experienced this six or more times.
James Damore may be completely right about the fact that people are experiencing discrimination in the workplace. He just seems to get who is being discriminated or being treated unfairly completely wrong.
Photo via Twitter/@JamesADamore
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