
Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge - JoshTriplett
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/google-firing-of-damore-was-legal-u-s-labor-panel-lawyer-said
======
tptacek
The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about,
because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech
company employees have.

According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be
disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA.
These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be
fired for trying reasonably to organize a union), but are actually broader:
the NLRA protects an employee right to almost arbitrary "concerted action" to
improve working conditions.

Damore was terminated by Google for authoring his anti-diversity memo. During
the time he was authoring and distributing internal copies of the memo, he
worked with (apparently) a bunch of other engineers at Google that shared many
of his viewpoints (the memo covers a lot of ground). He was terminated after
the memo, an artifact of his concerted effort to change aspects of how Google
was managed, was published. He and his lawyer mounted an 8(a)(1) complaint.

As a starting point --- people with real-world experience or understanding of
the NLRA should correct me where I'm wrong --- NLRA complaints get filed with
the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB adjudicates claims internally. If
a complaint is found valid, the NLRB will try to convince the employer to
settle with the employee; if that goes nowhere, the NLRB will itself
effectively sue the company. If the complaint is found invalid, the NLRB will
inform the complainant that NLRB is done with the case.

Most of these cases (there are tens of thousands annually as you'd expect) are
handled by grunts in DC. Novel or high-profile cases are escalated to a
special department in the NLRB called the Advice Division. This particular
case was not only escalated but apparently handled personally by the director
of the division, an NLRB lawyer who'd been with the board since 1988.

The NLRB turned down Damore's complaint. I think he could theoretically still
sue in civil court? I don't think that's commonly done? Either way, his
complaint was denied.

The basis for the complaint is super simple and kind of obvious in retrospect:
employers in the US are required by federal and usually state law to avoid
discrimination against protected classes. To the extent that Damore's memo was
about organizing against _discrimination of conservative viewpoints_ \--- a
phenomenon that is almost certainly real in SFBA tech! --- it was protected.
But to the extent that it attempted to organize around changes to Google
management that might (might) themselves violate EEO laws (for instance, any
kind of official recognition that men are better suited to software
development at Google than women), they were not. You can't use the NLRA to
organize in opposition to federal employment law. Wa-waa.

As it turns out, this was apparently super-apparent to Google legal and Google
HR, who fired Damore precisely by the book, exclusively for promoting
stereotypes about women and advocating for the inclusion of those stereotypes
into Google's management processes.

I think an important thing to consider --- I'm no lawyer and am probably wrong
about lots of this stuff --- is that if the memo had been exclusively about
how SFBA tech discriminates against conservatives and could in a number of
ways be made more accommodating to them, Damore would had been protected from
retaliation. The Advice Memo says as much!

So for someone like me, who believes very strongly in both the importance of
employee organizing rights (I think tech should organize into professional
associations; "unions lite") _and_ who believes strongly in the absolute
innate equivalence in aptitude for our profession between men and women, this
is the best possible outcome. There's a lot to take heart in here; we do in
fact have the right to organize that we've been saying we have.

~~~
darawk
> But to the extent that it attempted to organize around changes to Google
> management that might (might) themselves violate EEO laws (for instance, any
> kind of official recognition that men are better suited to software
> development at Google than women), they were not.

Was he trying to do that, though? As I understand it, he was protesting
policies that sought to _actively promote_ diversity. EEO laws require no such
active promotion, afaik. He fell all over himself to be clear that he was not
saying that Google should prefer hiring men, or that they should restrict
women to specific roles within the company. He was questioning Google's active
efforts to specifically recruit women above the background level that would
otherwise apply. Whether or not this is a good idea is certainly up for
debate, but it does not, to my knowledge, violate EEO laws to merely not
actively and specifically target women for recruitment.

> who believes strongly in the absolute innate equivalence in aptitude for our
> profession between men and women

Curious, why do you believe in that? Have you evaluated the evidence and come
to that conclusion, or is it a priori for you?

~~~
georgemcbay
> Curious, why do you believe in that? Have you evaluated the evidence and
> come to that conclusion, or is it a priori for you?

Curious why you question his belief?

All of the half-way reputable studies I've ever heard of have either concluded
that there is no difference in male/female intelligence or that there are
small differences in certain silos, with men scoring slightly higher on
average in visuospatial while women score slightly higher on average in
verbal.

Even if you accept the latter as fact (which there is no clear cut evidence-
based reason for doing so, if you look at the studies in aggregate) it says
basically nothing about suitability to "our profession" as both of those
skills are important.

Given the choice between someone with higher than average overall IQ and
outstanding visuospatial skills and someone with higher than average overall
IQ and outstanding verbal skills, I'd generally prefer the latter as a
colleague.

~~~
manfredo
The memo did not claim that women were less intelligent. It claimed that women
_prefer_ to work in fields other than tech. This is a statement of women's
choices, not their ability. It also claimed higher variance, but not overall
differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the
extreme.

~~~
bduerst
>This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability.

Wrong. The memo is poorly worded, but it does make the leap from just
preferences to abilities in this sentence, despite not having evidence for the
latter:

>>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences _and abilities_ of
men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these
differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech
and leadership.

~~~
manfredo
This is exactly in line with what I wrote. This quote talks about
distribution. Not averages, which was the parent comment's claim.

~~~
bduerst
The quote talks about abilities, which you said the memo did not say anything
about. Damore was positing that both women's _preferences_ and _abilities_ is
why you see less women in tech and leadership positions.

~~~
manfredo
From my original comment in this chain:

> ...also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words
> that there are more men on both sides of the extreme.

This is in reference to what the memo says about abilities. The memo does
claim higher or lower overall averages, too, but those are in terms of
preferences.

Let me lay this out point by point if I phrased this poorly before:

* The memo claims that women and men have different averages in preferences.

* That men and women have different distributions of abilities.

* The memo does not claim that there are different average of abilities.

Point #3 is what the parent comment claimed, among other things, and that is
wrong.

~~~
bduerst
Also from your original comment:

>This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability.

Edit: Rather than reply, you now edited your comment to split hairs on
distribution vs averages. That doesn't change the facts about Damore's
argument about biological ability to be in tech is unfounded.

~~~
manfredo
Hacker news wasn't letting me reply, so I put the classification in an edit.
It didn't change the content of what I wrote, just added a clearer (I hope)
phrasing.

I have not once mentioned biology in this comment chain. I made my original
comment to dispel the myth that Damore claimed that women have, on average,
less intelligence than men.

Whether you agree or disagree with the other claims made about biology is
orthogonal to this statement.

~~~
bduerst
You're right, you tried to reclassify what Damore said with this:

>This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability.

When _his_ argument was about biological ability. Damore's paper is
_orthogonal_ from you're claiming it to be.

------
dejawu
The way this whole thing played out makes me sad, because the guy did bring up
a good point - current-day social justice leaves little avenue for well-
meaning but unaware (perhaps through privilege) people to start conversations
and learn about the reasons and motivations for certain efforts such as
affirmative action and changes in vocabulary. Damore was indeed punished for
speaking out, just as he feared.

Then he started retweeting Breitbart articles and selling "Goolag" t-shirts
and threw his credibility out the window, and solving the problem of "how do
we bring people on-board with the diversity thing without scaring them off" is
again put off to another day.

~~~
Consultant32452
I feel like the progressive left THRUST Damore and anyone who might have
similar thoughts/questions into the welcoming arms of the alt-right. I'm
disappointed with the "Goolag" t-shirts, but he did lose his livelihood, had
his professional reputation destroyed, and only a limited time to cash out. So
this socially awkward nerd did what any sensible person would do, rode the
wave that was sent his way the best he could. Consider his professional
options compared to a standard "former Googler." They destroyed him, it was
terrible.

~~~
tclancy
He has no agency? He chose to speak up and then he chose to go down the path
he did. It is an impressive feat of mental gymnastics to both kinda sorta
acknowledge the alt-right might not be a great group of guys but then also
claim Damore had no choice but to pull into that port in a storm of his own
making. Allow me to pour out a beaker of Soylent for the poor, downtrodden
white man.

~~~
whataretensors
It's a despicable thing to destroy someone over an idea, despite the contents
of that idea.

I think tech workers are easy targets. For instance, we've all heard about the
need for diversity in tech, but never hear about accredited investors being <
6 % female and < 1 % black.

~~~
ncallaway
> It's a despicable thing to destroy someone over an idea, despite the
> contents of that idea.

Well, if I find out anyone holds nazi ideologies I'm happy to socially
"destroy" them over those ideas. I agree that the _government_ shouldn't
punish them for those ideas, but I think individual citizens and entities have
every right to disassociate and _socially_ punish someone for those ideas.

Now, I'm _not_ saying that Damore's ideas are that extreme. However, it puts
an upper bound for me on how much I can agree with your statement. There _are_
ideas that I'm fine imposing social punishments on people for believing.

I agree that Damore probably shouldn't be "destroyed" for his ideas (for
whatever a definition of "destroyed" is that obviously isn't literal
destruction), but I don't see why being fired is problematic for the way he
shared those ideas in the workplace.

Edit: This post previously had a typo that stated: "I agree that Damore
probably _should_ be 'destroyed' for his ideas". That was not the original
intent, and I've corrected "should" to read "shouldn't"

~~~
monkeywork
That serves to do is cause those who have been destroyed to seek out others
like themselves and create an echo chamber where they get more extreme,
alternatively it gets others to simply go dark in regards to their thoughts --
they still have them (possibly even more re-enforced because now you have
given them an enemy) and they will toe the line until they can get into a
position to push back.

You stamp this out instead by finding out how the people ended up with those
views to begin with, by being able to engage with those who view the world
different from you, and by not fueling their hate.

Does this work for ever person - no, but it should be at least attempted.

(fyi - this is more a general comment about social media slayings that are way
too common, I'm not being sympathetic to anyone who considers themselves a
nazi).

~~~
ncallaway
Right. I agree that social media shame parties can overreact to things and
create social punishments that I would agree aren't "proportional" (again, for
some arbitrary definition of proportional).

My general views on this are derived largely from Popper and the paradox of
tolerance (though, to be honest, I've more read _about_ his writing that his
work itself; it's next on my reading list). I don't think, as a society, we
should tolerate intolerant behavior.

Which means, again as a society†, I think we should aggressively refuse and
reject those with nazi ideologies. As an extension of that, I think we should
mildly reject and refuse those with mildly intolerant ideologies. In my
utopia, those social consequences would be proportional to the degree of
intolerance, and I think you're right and fair to note that social shaming can
quickly out-escalate the level of intolerance.

† _not_ as a government; all consequences and punishments I'm speaking of
should be social consequences and punishments. I'm fairly absolutist when it
comes to 1A protections from the government

------
fzeroracer
The problem with Damore's theory he posited (that the difference in traits and
abilities between men and women is why you see a certain imbalance in tech)
ignores the history of computer science, where in the early days of CS you had
a large amount of women entering into software followed by a sharp dropoff in
the 80s [1]. The 'biological differences' argument falls flat because it
implies that somehow women changed on a biological level between 1984 and
today.

I also take umbrage with his civil suit against Google because it amounts to
no more than a document meant to doxx google employees by revealing their
names and political positions ranging from benign to the more 'punch nazis'
level of discourse. There was selective censorship applied such that people he
agreed with were protected, while people he disagreed with were brought out in
front of the crowd. I have seen pictures floating around designed to make it
easy to effectively target said employees facebook, twitter etc accounts.

[1]
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-
women-stopped-coding)

~~~
gdix
I'm skeptical of the "early days of CS" narrative. Could it be that there were
lots of women working with computers because it was seen as "secretarial"
work. In other words, was it just bosses placing their female employees in
computer-related roles as companies added those positions? If so, could it be
that that "dropoff" in the 80s could be just reflective of the demographics of
people who were choosing that profession. i.e. Once "computers" became a
career that you could pursue, as opposed to being placed in, it attracted more
men than women, possibly because men are more attracted to that type of work.

~~~
ianamartin
My mother's college roommate went to work for NASA and worked on the Apollo
projects starting in the 50s. Programming at that time was all women, and it
was definitely seen as menial work. The literal astrophysicists and computer
scientists were doing the "real" work, and the women were "just punching
cards."

That wasn't the reality of it, of course. Those women were doing massive
amounts of the work around the logic of the systems.

But there was a hierarchy, and everyone knew it. Wasn't until the 70s and 80s
that things turned into a man's world. Once people figured out that there were
hard problems to solve and plenty of opportunities to yell, "Yeah! We Really
Fucked that problem in the ass!" Yeah, right about that time, the women
started leaving.

My mom's roommate didn't quit NASA until she retired quite nicely in 1995. And
by that time it was a very different place.

You can laugh and mock someone who started with punch cards all you want, and
maybe even think she's a dinosaur who didn't keep up. But this woman taught me
assembly, C, Lisp, C++, SQL, and Python. Not too shabby for a punchcard
programmer from the 50s. I'd say she kept up just fine.

But boy, did she want out of that environment. She was not a happy camper by
the time the 90s rolled around.

The thing you aren't getting is that it's the people on the ground who did a
lot of the work to make programming languages not suck.

~~~
fjsolwmv
No one is saying programming with Punch cards isn't programming. They are
saying that transcribing paper into punchcards and running them through the
computer isn't programming, any more than typing in code is programming.
Someone who writes code that they or others put into the machine, is
programming

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Sure, but the scientists at NASA didn't write code. They wrote down the
computations that needed to be carried out and the women who punched the cards
had to turn them into programs. And as we all know, transfering a formula to
code and making it run efficiently is not trivial, even if you're working with
a language "well suited" for the task like FORTRAN (which I'm going to bet was
on the punched cards the OP's friend was editing).

------
fareesh
This is one of the few subjects where much of the HN crowd is either
experiencing some shared hallucination, or is relying heavily on poor
journalism.

There are many comments that classify his memo as anti-diversity (it is pro
diversity), and there are many that seem to suggest that the memo claimed
women are less suited for these jobs, which again is patently false to anyone
who gives it a reasonable and full read.

The injustice here is that this employee was taken to a workshop/seminar, was
asked for feedback, which he submitted, and was ignored. His firing only came
when his memo was leaked to the public and it became the subject of a media
witch hunt.

Had the memo not been public, he would still be working there. This was not a
planned firing and there was nothing normal about it. The CEO cancelled his
vacation to return to HQ and address the situation caused by the media outcry.

This is a cancerous cultural problem that manifests the worst forms of
censorious and authoritarian practices of dictatorial regimes of the past.
Diversity at this cost is not worth it. Nothing is worth this kind of
environment that is openly hostile and punitive to "wrongthink".

People of various backgrounds are not tokens to be planted into various
positions to fulfill some fetish or misguided sense of justice. Under-
representation by a specific group or sub group is not sufficient evidence of
discrimination or a conspiracy. Deeming programs and opportunities unavailable
to people because they don't have the correct biological trait is disgusting,
and the ends do not justify the means. To argue that favoring someone because
they belong to a special genetic group is rooted in the very "essentialist"
thinking that is claimed to be chastised.

There is a better solution to these issues, and at this rate it will never be
found. Ironic that some of the world's most innovative people who have no
problem bouncing from one design pattern to another, are perfectly content
with an approach to a point that criticism of it will get you fired.

~~~
bencalam
The shared hallucination is the one experienced by the people agreeing with
the memo, and the ones who feel needlessly 'victimized' and 'persecuted' now
that times are changing.

Of course, this is expected since the first ones to complain about growing
equality are the ones who prospered disproportionately under inequality.

~~~
fareesh
It has very little to do with feelings though. In my specific case I am not
affected by these politics and policies whatsoever as I am thousands of miles
away from the United States, and I am self employed.

To constantly read about cases where biology determines whether or not people
are eligible for a particular opportunity, i.e. imposing inequality of
opportunity in order to arrive at equality of outcome, is violating the very
principles one claims to be opposed to. The excuse for this kind of
implementation is that it is justified, in order to fix historical inequality.
The people who are being discriminated against had no say in historical
inequality. They were born into this kind of a society by accident of birth.
If a young boy in Saudi Arabia goes to get a driving license and is told that
he is no longer eligible because they have decided to randomly reject 4/5 male
applicants to correct for historical injustice, he is being penalized for
something he had nothing to do with. When a young boy is rejected for a job he
is qualified for, citing the fact that he is the wrong sex, he is being
penalized for something he had nothing to do with. Nobody should be at a
disadvantage imposed on them by others using biology as a reason to do so.
This is immoral, and no outcome is worth this kind of violation of principle.

~~~
bencalam
In isolation, yes, you are very right. But history is anything but that, and
there is always a context and reason for why things are the way they are.

I am from India, and I know bias when I see it. Classism and racism is
systemic in India and whether you want to believe me or not, a person from a
religion or upper caste will prefer a person from the same group. I am not
going to claim that this exact same thing happens in the US, but I will not
believe that it doesn't happen at all.

The thing is that the memo even mentions the problems with inherent bias, and
then mentions that we need to have "open" dialogue.

The open dialogue is hard to happen when one group has been suppressed for
generations.

What are you going to tell them? - Ok, we are sorry for what we have done, now
we are going to be equal and you can compete for the same things? One group is
dirt poor and disadvantaged, and the other has always enjoyed enough wealth to
get proper education. How is that level playing field?

Minorities need to be given a hand up, at least for a generation to really
make a level playing field.

As for your examples, yes, it's unfair, but that's what the under privileged
group got told for generations. I guess life really is unfair.

~~~
fareesh
Minorities don't need to be given a "hand up". People with demonstrable
disadvantages can make a good case for the need to be given a "hand up".

The criteria for being institutionally favoured must not be rooted in biology,
because it generalizes against people who do not have the requisite biological
trait. This is the very same evil you are seeking to correct. You cannot use
the same evil against a different group to "equalise" the wrongs committed
before.

Two 15 year olds, one the son of a brahmin shopkeeper, the other, the son of a
lower caste politician each score 89% in their class 10 examination. The
politician's son has lived in the lap of luxury, elite coaching classes,
servants, chauffer driven car, quiet studying environment. The shopkeeper's
daughter shares a room with two siblings, spends 3 days a week doing a shift
at the store, studies alone in an area with frequent power cuts.

By your system of favoring minorities, the politician's son is favoured over
her, because he comes from a background of historical oppression. These cases
are deemed "rare enough" to be considered acceptable sacrifices for the great
cause of social justice.

Why must a biological standard be applied? Is this the best we can do ?

What are you going to tell the shopkeeper's daughter? Ok, we are sorry but
after enough generations we will reverse this and your grandchildren will have
justice?

You also cannot legislate away social ills and negative perceptions of one
community by another. You certainly won't improve such divisions by favoring
one community over another at an institutional level.

The shopkeeper's daughter tells her kids that she could have been an engineer
at one of the city's best colleges, but she was not the correct caste for her
grades to be deemed sufficient. Do you think this helps these divisions?

In a hypothetical engineering classroom, 25% of the class is at a different
academic level to the rest of the class. How does this impact the
relationships between students? How does this impact the way teachers teach
these classes? Are these going to fix the divisions between castes?

These are poor solutions. These solutions must not go uncriticized. No
solution should go uncriticized. We should always want to do better. Criticism
of a solution does not imply a lack of empathy for the problem or those
disaffected by it. Criticism of a solution to discrimination does not imply a
favorable attitude to discrimination. These are cheap, ad hominem and
intellectually dishonest ways of silencing people who do so, rather than
engaging them, as was done with Mr. Damore.

------
curtis
This sounds like the federal government concluded that Damore's firing did not
violate _federal_ employment law. I think (but I'm no expert) that the issue
of whether Damore's firing violated _California_ employment law is still an
open question.

~~~
berberous
This is correct. The National Labor Relations Board issued an Advice Memo,
declining to prosecute a case under the federal National Labor Relations Act.

Damore's California lawsuit, which per the first page of the complaint, lists
the below causes of action under various California laws, is unaffected.

CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT:

1\. Violation of Cal. Labor Code § 1101

2\. Violation of Cal. Labor Code § 1102

3\. Workplace Discrimination on the basis of Gender and/or Race in Violation
of FEHA

4.Workplace Harassment in Violation of FEHA

5.Retaliation in Violation of FEHA

6.Retaliation in Violation of Public Policy

7.Retaliation in Violation of Cal. Lab. Code § 1102.5

8.Failure To Prevent Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation

9.Unfair Business Practices, Bus. & Prof. Code Section 17200 et seq

10.Declaratory Relief

------
ggm
What I think of his views (I disagree) is not germaine to the question: was it
sensible to write and publish? It was not. That I disagree with his premise
and polemic makes it easier for me to align desire and reality, but the
reality of the situation doesn't change because of my desires: he was stupid
to publish and Google were within their rights to fire him.

All the other observed comments about liberal/conservative/libertarian views
are frankly not very interesting. The bottom line to me is that he didn't have
a strong enough claim to unfair dismissal.

Court did its job. Move on.

~~~
leereeves
There was no court involved in this yet. This was the opinion of a lawyer at
the National Labor Relations Board that they should not take up Damore's case.

~~~
ggm
Good point. He probably still has some civil court actions to take but I
suspect the NLRB position is wounding to his case.

------
_dps
Could a lawyer educate me on a technical matter here?

They say that "discriminatory statements are not protected". Is
"discriminatory statement" a matter of law or a matter of fact? Naively I'd
expect a jury to decide if a statement is discriminatory.

~~~
pukerz
Search for 'Rekieta Law' on YouTube, he is a lawyer analysing the case in
depth

------
ThomPete
Reading the comments in this thread is disheartening. It mostly consists of
either false claims of what Damore actually said or pre-conceived
interpretations of his memo as being anti-diversity without a single, not a
single reference to his memo.

~~~
stormbeta
I think you have it backwards - this thread is full of people making excuses
for Damore.

And yes, I've read it. Just because he wrote some sentences that claimed he's
in favor of diversity doesn't magically change the content of the rest of the
memo.

If he was truly arguing in good faith, he should've stuck to actual,
demonstrable examples of issues or problems caused by the existing diversity
practices. There was no need to go on long rambling tangents about population
statistics that even he acknowledges aren't really relevant to the topic:

> "Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between
> men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these
> population level distributions."

You'll note that most of the memo seems to be implying the opposite.

~~~
stcredzero
It's quite strange, but if you read James Damore's memo at face value, you'll
find Google and YouTube execs saying essentially the same thing in public:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrOp8ewzJDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrOp8ewzJDc)

 _There was no need to go on long rambling tangents about population
statistics that even he acknowledges aren 't really relevant to the topic_

It's certainly relevant. The "jury is still out" in terms of biology and
gender preferences and how those are modulated by culture:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmyO3hbOz8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmyO3hbOz8)

(Seriously, watch that, and tell me which side is intellectually open and
honest, and which side comes across as ideologues.)

 _> "Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap
between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given
these population level distributions."_

 _You 'll note that most of the memo seems to be implying the opposite._

"Seems to be implying." You are essentially admitting to an ideologically
skewed, imputational reading.

------
iovrthoughtthis
This is the ultimate HN bikeshedding topic.

It's a proxy for the nature / nurture debate.

I put my vote token in the nature side. Women can do what ever men can and
persisting the ideas that they can't sucks.

That is my opinion and I am unwilling to change it.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I agree it is bikeshedding. But I think it is bikeshedding with a constructive
purpose of serving as a safe sandbox in which people can practice talking
about difficult subjects without it blowing up in their face.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16399006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16399006)

~~~
verylittlemeat
The "constructive purpose" of the discussion for a man is to practice talking
about difficult subjects. The real world implication of discussing it is
suggesting that the potential of women in tech is up for debate.

Just _talking_ about some things is enough to imply unintended conclusions.
That's how it works in the real world no matter how hard you want to play Mr.
Logic. To believe otherwise is extremely naive and puts you in serious danger,
as Damore found out.

Opinions based around differences in human biology have a really bad
historical track record. Groups and institutions have built up a natural vomit
reflex for when they show up. Many might argue that this is a suppression of
the truth but they also have to appreciate that that suppression might be in
service of a greater good.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I was married for a lot of years. My marriage was a case of _opposites
attract._ We argued incessantly about everything but personal belief.

It took us a lot of years to get to the point where we could go furniture
shopping and communicate constructively in order to agree on a purchase
instead of fighting about who would win this one. We often were focused on
entirely different attributes in our decision making process. For example,
attractiveness of a bookshelf might be my focus. Sturdiness might be his.

Once we got past knee jerk rejection of each other's first pick, it was
entirely possible to find a bookshelf that satisfied both his criteria and
mine. But that required us to be able to communicate effectively, something we
didn't have mastered when we got married at age 19.

When you do surveys, you find that the majority of people are both
antiabortion and pro choice at the same time. Most people feel that abortion
should be a last resort, not standard birth control. But they also feel a
woman should have control over her body and her life and should not need to
prove she was raped to choose to terminate a pregnancy.

Pollsters with a political agenda know this. They can survey the same people
about the same issue and come up with data to support either antiabortion laws
or pro choice laws depending on how they ask the questions.

Most people are not monoliths and not rabidly polarized along X social fault
lines. The inability to safely talk to "the other side" means people can't
learn to speak in a more nuanced way and can't build bridges.

I'm not 19 anymore. I see no reason to pick bookshelf A while hubby picks
bookshelf B and we fight about who gets what they want. I am much more
interested these days in finding out why he likes B, talking about why I like
A and then looking for a third option that is satisfactory to both of us.

Society benefits when people can find a safe sandbox to begin that
communication process. It does not have to be a case of which side wins and
which side loses.

~~~
verylittlemeat
That's your spouse, come on. We're talking about coworkers, people who
casually end up in meetings together and talk shit or play politics with zero
regard for scorching the earth to get ahead. You have massive incentive not to
casually degrade the existence of your spouse. Your example isn't even a
different ballpark it's a different game.

In my experience most arguments of political nature have nothing to do with
finding the right answer. These arguments are social posturing. It's not about
_me_ being right it's about _you_ not being right. Some of the worst
argumentative know-it-alls I ever met were only that way almost as a form of
preemptive strike. They were terrified that someone might socially dominate
them so they had to dominate the other person first.

For that reason I'm deeply skeptical that Damore was trying to have a
conversation in good faith. It seems much more likely to me that he saw a
social justice culture that claimed to have a monopoly on what is right and
that _really_ got on his nerves. I bet Damore would have been an outspoken
social justice advocate if his workshop came to him and _asked_ "hey, do you
think these gender initiatives are good?" Instead I bet he got something more
along the lines of "this is why you think wrong."

~~~
DoreenMichele
You and I are not even discussing the same thing. I am talking about
discussions about Damore on the internet generally and on HN in specific.
Discussion on HN can develop over hours, days, weeks, months even years. Some
people here have known each other for years. In most cases, they can just walk
away if things get too harried, regroup, rethink, conclude "that phrasing went
super bad" and try something else.

~~~
verylittlemeat
I think your bar for good faith conversation is set unrealistically high.
Outside of friends and family most people have no incentive to concede
anything in a conversation if they don't want to. Some people don't care at
all about burning bridges to "win." For anonymous conversations on the
internet this is almost the rule rather than the exception.

Don't get me wrong, I wish most people weren't assholes just as much as you do
but it's a race to the bottom. If one person values "being right" they will
take your good faith argument and eat you alive in public with no mercy.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I think my expectations align with HN guidelines and with a fair amount of
observable behavior here. Granted, some folks can't be arsed. (shrug)

~~~
verylittlemeat
I guess you and I are reading a different hacker news then. I can hardly go
one thread here that doesn't devolve into petty power jabs for internet
points. I don't know how you can read the comments in this Damore thread and
not agree that's the case.

Of course, that's against the HN guidelines, but it's not exactly hard to
follow the letter of the guidelines while breaking the spirit of them.

~~~
dang
If you notice people doing that you should flag the comments. How to do this
is in the FAQ:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).

------
swat535
When this discussion was initially ignited a while back, I had wondered
whether I should seek the opinion of my girlfriend regarding this topic.

She is a brilliant software engineer who switched out of CS into another
major, despite having top grades.

I finally caved and asked her to read the original memo.

Whilst she found the memo interesting, she mentioned this is the view of a
single person and found it ridiculous that it caused such an outcry.

She is all for diversity in tech (and for all industries for that matter) and
pointed out that the hypersensitivity nature of CS causes much harm than good.

While we are busy doing roundabout discussions regarding a memo, personal data
of millions of people are being leaked, privacy and security of people are in
jeopardy because we fail to make high quality software.

It truly sadden both of us that the brilliant minds in our Industry are
focused on what should/should not be written in a personal memo, than actually
pushing the boundaries of software.

When a thought provoking community such as HN calls for arms every time this
topic comes up and turns into a battlefield, I do wonder whether we have
already lost the fight for TRUE diversity.

------
rendall
Did the NLRB memo specify exactly which statements in Damore's memo were
discriminatory and hostile? Is there a copy available?

~~~
leereeves
The two statements they mentioned specifically were:

> Women are more prone to “neuroticism,” resulting in women experiencing
> higher anxiety and exhibiting lower tolerance for stress, which “may
> contribute to . . . the lower number of women in high stress jobs”;

> Men demonstrate greater variance in IQ than women, such that there are more
> men at both the top and bottom of the distribution. Thus, posited, the
> Employer’s preference to hire from the “top of the curve” may result in a
> candidate pool with fewer females than those of “less-selective” tech
> companies.

~~~
pukerz
The second statement was not even in the memo

------
ABCLAW
Would it be possible to rename the thread "Fired Google Engineer Who Authored
Diversity Memo Withdraws NLRA Challenge."? I think that's quite a bit more
accurate.

~~~
awesomepantsm
It's not though, because it wasn't withdrawn it was rejected.

~~~
ABCLAW
I think the official case record is not in agreement with your understanding:

[https://www.nlrb.gov/case/32-CA-205351](https://www.nlrb.gov/case/32-CA-205351)

------
throwestawayer
Real question: having seen that many good engineers are hesitant to work at a
company with very limited diversity, we have endeavored to increase diversity
by hiring qualified junior engineers from less represented groups. Is this
acceptable?

These are completely qualified folks, for the job of junior engineer. We
purposely, from the category of all qualified junior applicants, hired those
that also were from less represented groups.

Is this perceived (by “you”, I suppose) as “acceptable”?

~~~
ralusek
If they are completely qualified, they should and would be hired by a system
that completely ignores gender and race. While the morality of your system is
up for debate, what is not up for debate is that your system is mathematically
disadvantaged in terms of hiring the best engineers...because your system
ignores the vast majority of the hiring pool (presumably white/Indian/east
asian [straight?] men). A blind system favors/ignores nobody.

~~~
PricelessValue
> If they are completely qualified, they should and would be hired by a system
> that completely ignores gender and race.

I can't believe you were downvoted for expressing that merit rather than race
and gender should be use for hiring decisions.

~~~
Caveman_Coder
> I can't believe you were downvoted for expressing that merit rather than
> race and gender should be use for hiring decisions.

This is the new world we unfortunately live in. Words and their meanings are
transformed to fit within the ideology ("it isn't discrimination if it favors
women over men, or minorities over whites...")...

------
ianamartin
I strongly disagree with what the guy said. But I also find it problematic
that he was fired for saying it. That's crossing a line I'm not comfortable
with.

There were other legitimate points in his claim that should be addressed too.
You simply can't discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity. And if people
are outright saying that, that's a problem.

Is he a jackass? Yes. Did he do something obnoxious with that memo? Yes. Fire
him for that. Which they did. Totally fine with that.

But if the real culture at google is as described, that's something that needs
to come to light in discovery. I would have preferred for this to move forward
so we can see some light on things.

The problem here isn't with Damore's "theory." It's whether or not there is a
pervasive, race-based bias.

My suspicion is that there isn't really anything in practice. Yeah, maybe some
dude does some virtue signalling every once in a while. But in reality, I
can't actually believe a competent HR team would let that happen on a
systematic level.

The chances are he would've been shown to be wrong. So it's too bad this
didn't go past this stage.

------
droopybuns
If we are all honest with ourselves, we acknowledge that we have our opinions
about how most men think and how most women think.

The difference between being cast out and being celebrated is that the latter
keeps their opinions to themselves. This guy self-immolated for foolishness.

------
air7
I've recently encounter Jordan Peterson. He speaks very eloquently about
topics such as gender differences from (IMO) a rational and scientific point
of view. I'm linking an interview with him which I find fascinating: Both for
the information he conveys and for the manner in which he manages to remain
cool and clear-headed against a very aggressive interviewer.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54&t=4m55s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54&t=4m55s)

------
notconservative
I looked up the Advice Memo [0] written by the NRLB (thanks tptacek for
mentioning that document) so that I could try to see what exactly they found
discriminatory about Damore's paper. This is the relevant section:

> The Charging Party’s use of stereotypes based on purported biological
> differences between women and men should not be treated differently than the
> types of conduct the Board found unprotected in these cases. statements
> about immutable traits linked to sex—such as women’s heightened neuroticism
> and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution—were discriminatory
> and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding effort to cloak comments
> with “scientific” references and analysis, and notwithstanding “not all
> women” disclaimers.

The "these cases" reference is talking about a KKK member and someone who
"made debasing and sexually abusive remarks to a female employee who had
crossed a picket line months earlier". I don't see how Damore's memo is at all
relatable to these.

And more importantly, the content they found to be discriminatory were the
studies on differences in IQ and psycological traits by gender? How can
presenting science be discriminatory?

If you disagree with some study, you explain why the methodology it used is
bad or find other studies that try to explain it. You don't just claim that
it's findings are discriminatory. That makes it impossible to discover why
it's wrong (if it is).

[0] (PDF)
[http://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391](http://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391)

~~~
tptacek
You've lost the context of the Advice Memo. The NLRB isn't saying Damore
himself violated EEO laws by writing the memo. The NLRB didn't fire Damore;
Google did. The NLRB is saying that although the NLRA protects concerted
action to improve working conditions, those protections _do not_ extend to
action that might discriminate against protected classes, and, crucially, that
because employers are required by state and federal law to comply with EEO
laws, the NLRB will tend not to second-guess them about how they do that.

The important thing to remember is that in most of the US, there's a
presumption that employers can fire you for any reason. Employment is at-will.
Damore was appealing to a specific exception to that rule.

~~~
ankushnarula
That would be a narrow and incomplete reading of Damore's memo based on
prejudice. Damore's description that on average men and women are different is
not itself discriminatory or harmful since it's backed up by quite a lot of
biological and psychometric science.

The question should have been "What is Damore advocating?".

And if they read the entire document then it would be clear that Damore was
suggesting methods to bring Google's gender balance to 50/50 by making Google
(and tech in general) more attractive to women by altering the software
engineering culture to leverage inherent strengths that women (on average)
possess.

~~~
tptacek
No, the Advice Memo repeatedly notes that much of the memo is not
objectionable. The problem Damore faced with the NLRB is that Google was
careful to terminate him _specifically and exclusively_ for the parts of the
memo that would advocate policies problematic under EEO laws.

They read the whole memo (and indeed summarize a lot of it, not just the
prejudicial bits).

~~~
ankushnarula
I read it. And I'm even more skeptical now:

> ~ statements about immutable traits linked to sex — such as women's
> heightened neuroticism and men's prevalence at the top of the IQ
> distribution — were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment,
> notwithstanding~ effort to cloak~ comments with "scientific" references and
> analysis, and notwtihstanding "not all women" disclaimers.

"Effort to cloak" and quotation marks around "scientific" are giving something
away about the author.

> Moreover, the Charging Party reasonably should have known that the
> memorandum would likely be disseminated further, even beyond the workplace.

Damore "reasonably should have known" someone else was going to violate
workplace confidentiality and code of conduct by leaking the document to the
media? This seems like a failure of the employer not the employee.

> Once the memorandum was shared publicly, at least two female engineering
> candidates withdrew from consideration and explicitly named the memo as
> their reason for doing so.

This is the evidentiary component of the argument - which pivots on the not-
so-reasonable "reasonably should have known" assertion.

------
omot
Can someone remind me, what was he trying to accomplish with this memo?

------
jrcii
Only liberals are allowed to work at Google, and only liberals are allowed to
express their political opinions on HN. The liberal-tech crowd groupthink
enforcement is real.

~~~
defertoreptar
His cardinal sin was saying that men and women are biologically different. He
could've said a lot, but as soon as he tried to give a biological explanation
for why girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer toy cars, he entered taboo
territory. It's a thought crime because it implies that cultural influences
aren't 100% responsible for why more men are interested in STEM than women.

~~~
s73v3r_
No, he tried to use unrelated data on the biological differences between men
and women to justify why Google shouldn't try to reach out more to women to
diversify their workforce.

~~~
gowld
The memo had a section dedicated to changing Google to make it more welcoming
to women. It mentioned "pair programming" as one female-friendly culture
change.

~~~
mcguire
" _We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming
and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-
oriented certain roles at Google can be and we shouldn 't deceive ourselves or
students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students
into coding might be doing this)._"

------
bjourne
I don't agree with Damore's message. But Google cultivated an environment were
open discussion were encouraged. So firing him for stating his opinion is
truly, hypocritical bullshit.

People should get fired for not doing their jobs -- not for writing what they
think. And I also want to say that before you blame "the Left" for Google's
behavior... Had he been fired in "Socialist Europe," the firing would have
been declared against the law and Google would have had to pay a hefty fine.

I can add why I'm so sure he wouldn't have been fired. In most (many?)
European countries, you can be fired for only(!) two reasons; misconduct and
labor shortage. Misconduct must be specifically related to your job
performance. Like, a train conductor that always oversleeps or a cock who
can't boil eggs. Something quite a bit more obvious than claiming gender
differences between men and women. Labor shortage is if there is not enough
work to do and then the company can let go of the surplus personnel.

The walkthrough of the US laws, that tptacek provides, shows that they are
completely different and much less employee friendly.

~~~
scaryclam
No, here in "socialist Europe" he'd have been fired as well. He broke clear
company rules and made the working environment hostile for others. That's not
acceptable over here the same was as it's not in the US. However, had he
written this out on a personal blog, or just has an adult conversation with HR
I believe he'd had been safe on both sides of the pond.

People don't just get fired for not doing their jobs. If I bully a co-worker
or start stating _at work_ that I think someone is less capable for any reason
linked to their biology, religion, sexuality or age I will be putting my job
at risk. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's worked in a professional
environment for any amount of time (or heck, even a fresh graduate who
bothered to read the company handbook!).

~~~
5F36B5F62640
> If I bully a co-worker or start stating at work that I think someone is less
> capable for any reason linked to their biology, religion, sexuality or age I
> will be putting my job at risk.

He didn't really say women were less capable, though (biologically or
otherwise).

He said that there are differences not related to capability, and that the
current environment in tech is such that the work environment is more
acceptable to people on the "male" side of those differences, which makes
capable women less likely to go into or stay in tech. To increase diversity he
suggested that we need to make the tech environment more friendly to women.

For example, he said that men on average are more competitive, and women more
cooperative, and that women tend to value work-life balance more then men, and
men tend to value status more. There's a fair bit of scientific literature
supporting those claims. (To what extent these differences are biological
rather than learned is less clear--but does it actually matter?)

Currently tech tends to favor competitive status seekers who will make their
career the focus of their life (especially for management and leadership
positions). Cooperative people who want a good work-life balance get left
behind. He suggested Google move toward more pair programming and other
cooperative ways of doing things, and make it so that it is easier for
employees to balance their outside life with work. That should get more women
coming into tech and increase the retention rate.

It is worth reading the actual memo if you have not. A very large amount of
the discussion of it has been based on what people imagined it said, not what
it actually said.

~~~
bduerst
>He didn't really say women were less capable, though (biologically or
otherwise).

Did you read the memo?

>>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences
may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and
leadership.

~~~
aianus
That says nothing about the abilities of his female coworkers who are already
working at Google and who are already in the minority there.

He's saying that going full steam ahead trying anything and everything to get
to 50/50 may be impossible without lowering the bar for women which is bad for
everyone.

~~~
bduerst
So which is it then? You're going from "He didn't say that about women" to "He
said that about women but he didn't mean that about his women coworkers" \-
i.e. no true scotsman.

Even so, Damore did not specifically say that about "non-coworker women", he
said it about women.

~~~
sjdhvsi
One is the distribution of the entire population, the other is a tiny and non
representative sample. Take a probability class if that is hard for you to
understand.

------
notconservative
> “Much of" Damore’s memo was probably protected under the law. ... But ...
> Google discharged Damore only for his "discriminatory statements," which
> aren’t shielded by labor law.

Given how significantly many people have misunderstood Damore's claims, this
seems to open up a hole for companies to mischaracterize someone as a
racist/sexist/etc and then fire them over it.

~~~
izacus
Isn't employment in places where these companies operate at-will? Meaning they
can fire you because you waved your hair funny in the morning?

~~~
BookmarkSaver
Yes, but (IANAL) if the employee suspects that there was an illegal reason
behind it, they can probably sue and subpoena documents revealing management
motivations.

Like, sure, a manager could wake up and just fire you because they were
grumpy. But if it is discovered that there was internal communications about
their political opinions leading up to it, then there would be a case.

~~~
jxdxbx
You can be fired for your political opinions.

------
AHZHKPA
The way we are talking to each other here is just toxic. Most of it isn’t even
a conversation at all and I see very few attempts at understanding or empathy.
It all just stinks of tribalism.

Every time the memo is brought up I see this same shit, and feel someone needs
to call it out. I don’t care what side you are on; how we are going about this
conversation is clearly not working. I wish I had a solution for this. I
don’t. But understanding that there is a problem may be a good first step.

We must be better than this

~~~
Chris2048
What use is calling it out when you "don't care what side you are on"?

You are ready to assign equal blame, when there are unequal incentives.

------
Clanan
> The Charging Party’s use of stereotypes based on purported biological
> differences between women and men should not be treated differently than the
> types of conduct the Board found unprotected in these cases.

This Advice Memo establishes the precedent that discussing biological
differences between men and women constitutes sexual harassment, even if those
differences are supported by scientific research.

~~~
mirimir
Oh, so now men can wear short dresses to work? Or at least, shorts? When it's
hot, it sucks to wear long pants. Sleeveless tees would be cool, too.

