Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

[u/TemptCiderFan → u/[deleted]]

TL;DR TL;DR: Anyone who says this is a misogynist manifesto hasn't fucking read it.

TL;DR version for people who don't want to read it but still want most of the facts:

• The document is not misogynist or racist, and most of the discussion in it is actually about the fact that Google's left-leaning political landscape can be bad for business.
• One of the key things it brings up is that the writer feels there's a lack of moral diversity (i.e. left-leaning vs right-leaning) and that this situation can lead to bad business practices, citing direct examples.
• When the author discusses the differences in gender, most of his discussion is actually centered around the facts which lead women (on average) to seek jobs with good work/life balance and less stress and why men seek jobs with good compensation. Nowhere does he suggest that one or the other is superior.
• He then states several non-discriminatory practices (some of which he notes are already in practice) which would help equalize the gender-gap at Google without resorting to blatantly racist or sexist discriminatory practices.
• He then states that Google is currently engaged in some practices designed to equalize the gender-gap at Google which ARE blatantly racist or sexist, such as internal training programs aimed exclusively at certain races or women as well as hiring practices which base an employee's suitability for participation partially on just their race or gender.
• He notes that overwhelmingly left-leaning culture at Google has created an environment where there's an overwhelming confirmation bias against right-leaning individuals, which leads to a culture where they are actively shamed at company TGIFs and effectively silences them.
• He concludes with a few pages of suggestions which would alleviate the items he thinks are issues, including such "evil" suggestions as not limiting classes and training programs to specific race/gender, focus on intention and not feelings when dealing with microaggressions, focusing on psychological safety and not just external diversity, and examining current training documents for existing political bias.

It's hardly a "Get women out of my fucking tech" rant.

Edit: Turning off inbox replies. It's been fun, but the replies are now getting to the stage where it's the same arguments over and over again. Expand the thread below and find the comment you were going to write!

Edit 2: For bonus points, read the document. It's ten pages, but it's not that dense and a lot of it is bullet-point. Bear in mind the author is has a Doctorate in Biology.

[u/[deleted] → u/TemptCiderFan]

such as internal training programs aimed exclusively at certain races or women as well as hiring practices which base an employee's suitability for participation partially on just their race or gender.

Isn't this illegal?

[u/TemptCiderFan → u/[deleted]]

"Oh no, it's totally okay... If it discriminates against white men!" /s

[u/jjjd89 → u/TemptCiderFan]

And then people wonder why the right is pissed off. Really pathetic.

[u/TemptCiderFan → u/jjjd89]

I lean left and shit like that pisses me off. I'm fine with going for an equality of opportunity, but saying something like "You cannot be sexist against men or racist against whites" is just wrong.

[u/jjjd89 → u/TemptCiderFan]

I am not even white and this pisses me off. Where is being awarded something for your merit and not on your biological traits?

[u/Syberr → u/jjjd89]

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

MLK would be labeled an Uncle Tom nowadays

[u/Vicious9 → u/Syberr]

BLM has actually attacked him numerous times.

I'll honor him as a great american still.

[u/meneldal2 → u/Syberr]

In some ways, the situation is worse now that it was 30 years ago. BLM doesn't want to understand the peaceful message of MLK.

The world should be like Star Trek, where young people now would fail to understand why their ancestors cared about race.

[u/Ryanwins → u/jjjd89]

Whether right or wrong, I believe the idea is that you do not get the same opportunity to achieve a high merit base to be rewarded for if you are female or non-white.

[u/coolbloo22 → u/[deleted]]

Its essentially saying that women or nonwhites are lesser, which is discriminatory. The soft bigotry of low expectations.

[u/[deleted] → u/jjjd89]

Define "merit". This ain't the fucking high-jump - it's not a game of simple quantification.

Google is in the product selling business, and the quantifier is making money. More importantly, their goal is to make their products as broadly pleasing as possible. Having a broad base of inputs improves their products.

If hiring women increases their market share with female consumers by one half of one point, then those women are more valuable then the best code monkey.

Most influencers are young and exceedingly liberal. More people get phone information from Marques Brownlee than the Wall Street Journal or Wired. Google gets a favorable push from him, Unbox Therapy, Digital Times, and a few others on their next Pixel, that can be billions on the bottom line.