
James Damore sues Google for discrimination - djsumdog
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/8/16863342/james-damore-google-lawsuit-diversity-memo
======
merricksb
Extensive discussion previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098676)

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JumpCrisscross
Important context: “Harmeet Dhillon,” the attorney at the top-left of page
one, is the “chairwoman of the Republican Party in San Francisco” [1]. Damore
has managed to pawn himself off as a one-act political ploy and fundraising
billing for the 2018 midterms. In exchange, he gets an unwinnable case and
play a human heatsink for this issue for the rest of his life.

TL; DR If an attorney with political ambitions offers to fight your case for
free, you may be paying with something other than currency.

[1] [http://m.sfgate.com/politics/article/Harmeet-Dhillon-
Republi...](http://m.sfgate.com/politics/article/Harmeet-Dhillon-Republican-
leader-with-S-F-twist-2374454.php)

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onion2k
Google can _easily_ prove that they don't discriminate against white men by
demonstrating that their workforce is mainly white men. There obviously isn't
any discrimination on that part. There is a question of whether or not Google
could discriminate against conservatives, but in the case of Damore _they
obviously didn 't because they employed him_. He could claim he was fired for
political action in the workplace, but that isn't protected speech so Google
were not in the wrong about that.

How he can have a case?

[1] See misconception 2 here [https://www.hklaw.com/publications/Hey-Take-It-
Outside-Polit...](https://www.hklaw.com/publications/Hey-Take-It-Outside-
Politics-in-the-Workplace-10-01-2011/)

~~~
stromgo
Your easy proof is completely wrong. There's discrimination against white men
if the hiring bar is higher for them. To check this using workforce statistics
you'd need to compare the fraction of white men in the workforce to what it
would be with the same hiring bar for everyone. Comparing the fraction to the
magic number 50% is irrelevant.

~~~
mcphage
> To check this using workforce statistics you'd need to compare the fraction
> of white men in the workforce to what it would be with the same hiring bar
> for everyone.

If there was the same hiring bar for everyone, then wouldn't the a company
(such as Google) who has the ability to hire only the best, end up with a
distribution which matches the population as a whole?

~~~
IanDrake
No. You’re not dealing with reality.

Reality is that African Americans are not doing well as a segment of the
population, for whatever reason.

Reality is that compared to men, women aren’t as interested in STEM, for
whatever reason.

Reality is that Asian Americans are doing very well in STEM and other fields,
for whatever reason.

Removing reasons from the equation, you have to realize that reality will
dictate the distribution of the best candidates for these jobs.

 _these are all generalizations. A woman can be more interested and better in
STEM than a man, but the left forces us to generalize by gender and race,
which ultimately lead to statistics that make people uncomfortable.

_ * I provided no citations for these generalizations for the sake of time,
but if anyone disagrees I can provide them.

~~~
mcphage
> you have to realize that reality will dictate the distribution of the best
> candidates for these jobs

That seems backwards—a company would be better off hiring from demographics
that are underperforming versus expected, and then finding a way to get them
to perform as well as their innate talent would allow.

~~~
IanDrake
Why would a company be better off? You never explained that.

A company hires individuals.

If you want someone who is underperforming, why does that underperforming
person need to identify as an underperforming intersectional group?

If a black, transgender (was a man, now a post-op woman), lesbian (she likes
women), who is a cross dresser (she likes to dress like a man) applies for a
job, do you just hire her on the spot because she ticks so many boxes of
supposedly marginalized people?

That seems like a bad way to run a business and I would suggest you hire based
on qualifications.

~~~
mcphage
> If you want someone who is underperforming, why does that underperforming
> person need to identify as an underperforming intersectional group?

Because you found a way to identify groups of people who are probably a lot
more skilled than your ability to measure qualifications indicates. So you can
trust in your measurements, or you can accept that our ability to measure
nebulous concepts is weak. Think of it like arbitrage.

------
probably_wrong
Someone submitted yesterday a link to the full complaint:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100834)

------
IanDrake
“suggested women may be biologically inferior engineers“

It didn’t say that, but let’s not let truth get in the way.

~~~
timmytwotime
From the start this article was fraught with inaccuracy and obvious virtue
signaling. Not to mention The Verge has attempted to connect Damore to the
alt-right on 4chan. This publication cannot be trusted.

~~~
nailer
Better link, with Google-created evidence from Damore's lawyer:
[https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121](https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121)

~~~
IanDrake
Wow. Thanks for the link.

