James Damore, the Google engineer who was fired after arguing that the gender gap in tech may be partially explained by sex differences among men and women, just filed a class-action lawsuit against Google in the Santa Clara, Calif., Superior Court.
Damore came to fame after he wrote the now-infamous “Google Manifesto,” where he pointed out that “differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech.”
Despite being attacked as sexist by many left-wingers, many academics and researchers also came to his defense, including Toronto-based sex researcher Dr. Debra Soh and Geoffrey Miller, a evolutionary psychology professor at the University of New Mexico.
Filed Monday morning, the class-action lawsuit argues that Google discriminates against white conservative men on the basis of their “male gender” and “Caucasian race,” further alleging that there is “open hostility for conservative thought” in the Google workplace.
Damore is joined by another former Google engineer named David Gudeman, who faced “wrongful termination” in 2016 after three years as a software engineer. Both are represented by the Dhillon Law Group.
The lawsuit also alleges that Google employees were awarded bonuses for arguing against Damore’s views. In one example of this, a female employee was awarded a bonus for speaking out against the “wretched hive of scum and villainy” allegedly represented by Damore’s memo.
Email excerpts sent among Google employees after Damore’s memo went public also illustrated pervasive hostility towards conservatives.
“I intend to silence these views; they are violently offensive,” wrote senior engineer Colm Buckley in a message to his coworkers. He also wrote to coworkers that there are certain political views “which I do not want people to feel safe to share.”
The class-action lawsuit suggests that there may be many other current and former Google employees who similarly suffered. Not only does the lawsuit seek damages, but it also expresses Damore’s hope that the court will step in to prevent Google from continuing to violate California’s anti-discrimination codes.
In a press conference this morning, lawyer Harmeet K. Dhillon argued alongside Damore that they filed this lawsuit in hopes of addressing the social climate at Google.
“This is about changing the behavior and attitude of Silicon Valley, where now the only acceptable form of discrimination… is that it’s okay to disparage, smear, belittle, bully and discriminate against conservatives and white men,” said Dhillon. “That’s not acceptable.”
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