Former Employee Sues Google for discriminating Against White Males

[Starbuck1975]

Sort of. Political activity outside of work is protected. If it's in the work environment, they can fire you if it's disruptive, impacts your work, or even conflicts with the employer's business model. Under the law, Google has pretty wide latitude given that this was a memo circulated within the company. Had it been a Facebook posting, he'd have a better case.

Fair point, although he originally posted it to an internal message board that functions as a sort of Reddit for employees. My understanding is that other employees put it in email, and then it went viral.

The first question I would ask is whether or not other employees are posting equally anatatonistic or "offensive" content and not facing termination for it. Did he have a reasonable expectation that this forum exists to engage in such debate.

Secondly, many of the responses to his posts are of a vitriol and nature that is equally toxic, so Google will need to rationalize why that is acceptable.

 

[woolfe9998]

Fair point, although he originally posted it to an internal message board that functions as a sort of Reddit for employees. My understanding is that other employees put it in email, and then it went viral.

The first question I would ask is whether or not other employees are posting equally anatatonistic or "offensive" content and not facing termination for it. Did he have a reasonable expectation that this forum exists to engage in such debate.

Secondly, many of the responses to his posts are of a vitriol and nature that is equally toxic, so Google will need to rationalize why that is acceptable.

The short answer is that if Google is permitted to fire one person for making what it considers to be disruptive remarks in the work context, it isn't required by law to fire others for similar behavior. They could also, for example, fire one employee for stealing petty cash but not another for doing the same thing. The law doesn't require consistency in these kinds of decisions. It only precludes firing individuals for certain specific reasons. The argument you're making is more one of fairness, not a legal one.

 

[Starbuck1975]

The short answer is that if Google is permitted to fire one person for making what it considers to be disruptive remarks in the work context, it isn't required by law to fire others for similar behavior. They could also, for example, fire one employee for stealing petty cash but not another for doing the same thing. The law doesn't require consistency in these kinds of decisions. It only precludes firing individuals for certain specific reasons. The argument you're making is more one of fairness, not a legal one.

The lines between fairness and discrimination are certainly blurry

 

[jpeyton]

Damore is hoping for a pay day because he's persona non grata in Silicon Valley after penning that abhorrent opinion piece.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Nobody cares why you think Trump won and frankly nobody cares about your opinions more generally here as they feels based, not reals based.

That's what I think is so funny about your victim complex on here. You think people don't like your posts because you're conservative when in reality they don't like your posts because they are written poorly and aren't logic based.

Glad to know you speak for everyone here.

 

[SlowSpyder]

The ONLY discrimination I have ever seen in my workplace is the discrimination of non-performers. People who are not productive eventually get laid off, people who are productive don't. Where the fuck do you work where performance isn't the metric?

I am in engineering so it patently easy to tell if somebody isn't working out. This may be different than other fields.

I work for a large company in the networking field / IT. Performance is largely what certainly matters. But I can truthfully tell you that I've been part of meetings where race / sex of employees is looked at on a spreadsheet in front of a specific group and we make sure we have a diverse make up on purpose. More often than not it is all about best person for the job, but it does happen where people are looked at outside of just performance when deciding who to hire or promotions. This is where being a white male is typically not an advantage. You can pretend this doesn't happen in the real world, but it does.

 

[SlowSpyder]

lol. If this was true, you wouldn't be constantly whining about being a victim of racism against white males on the politics section of a random tech forum.

No one is whining, but my real life experience does matter. I sucked it up and moved on, but it always amazed me since that time how it was openly acceptable to pass white males up due to nothing other than being a white male. Such privilege.

 

[Commodus]

No one is whining, but my real life experience does matter. I sucked it up and moved on, but it always amazed me since that time how it was openly acceptable to pass white males up due to nothing other than being a white male. Such privilege.

It's a tad ironic to claim you're not whining but fervently cling to the hope that Damore wins his lawsuit despite his open misogyny and generally shitty behavior. If nothing else, Google was justified in firing him simply because he made it virtually impossible for women to feel comfortable working with him.

 

[urvile]

No one is whining, but my real life experience does matter. I sucked it up and moved on, but it always amazed me since that time how it was openly acceptable to pass white males up due to nothing other than being a white male. Such privilege.

Jeez. It must be tough being a white conservative in the US. Constantly being victimised by coloureds and mexicans. With your only outlet being the circulation of bizarre misogynistic rants around the company you work for. Which you then sue because you cannot figure out why you were fired.

I also have an anecdote. I work for a european company and I went to head office a little while ago and I was not just the only white guy in the building (yes there are countries filled with darkies in europe) but I was also the only native english speaker. I was in a presentation and they started speaking in their native tongue. I felt marginalised, victimised and unimportant. Also I wonder how they felt about giving a white guy the job?