Watch: Google engineer fired for memo criticizing diversity policies is back – here’s why

What’s going on?

James Damore, a Google engineer fired last summer over an internal memo criticizing Google’s diversity programs, is now joining another ex-Googler to sue the company for illegal discrimination against employees based on race, gender and political views.

Along with fellow former Google engineer David Gudeman, Damore is seeking class-action status so others who allege discrimination because they are white, male or conservative can join the suit.

The lawsuit claims that “Google employs illegal hiring quotas to fill its desired percentages of women and favored minority candidates, and openly shames managers of business units who fail to meet their quotas—in the process, openly denigrating male and Caucasian employees as less favored than others.”

Remind me about this memo:

The 10-page memo went viral back in August and detailed Damore’s criticisms of Google’s diversity efforts. Damore, who had worked at Google since 2013, pushed back against the idea that every gender gap in technology is due to sexism and explored potential reasons for Google’s gender gap in leadership positions.

“I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes,” Damore wrote. “When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.”

Glenn’s take:

“Ridiculous overreaction by Google,” Glenn said. “By firing Damore, Google basically confirmed, ‘Yeah, you can’t speak out if you have a different opinion.’”

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