> > were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references and analysis and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers.
> I find this disturbing.
I find this very disturbing as well. The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, face-value reading of the memo and impute motivations to him. So basically, any employee commentary on an employer's policies with regards to the EEO's goals can be held to be "discriminatory" and "harassment" because it "sounds bad" and "sounds like" it's against EEO's goals, even if that can't be demonstrated on a factual basis.
You will fall in line, and you don't even dare sound like you're secretly against us. How is that not "thought-crime?"
You can call it that if you want; then, in the US, you can be fired for "thought crime". The only thing at issue here is that you can't be fired in retaliation for workplace organizing --- but that protection doesn't apply if what you're organizing about pertains to an area where the NLRB gives deference to employers.
There's a case history in the Advice Memo. They didn't make this up just for Google.
that protection doesn't apply if what you're organizing about pertains to an area where the NLRB gives deference to employers.
Those precedents exist to prevent employees from organizing active resistance to the NLRB's goals. If you read Damore's memo at face value, he's proposing modifying the way in which Google pursues those goals, taking differences in preferences into account. Strangely enough, Google and YouTube executives have spoken in public and have basically taken James Damore's memo's position and advocated the same kind of action he proposes in the memo.
It seems like HR and "diversity officers" have effectively become the "political officers" of the 21st century left of collectivist grievance politics. Employers are required to have certain policies, and the NLRB can conveniently "defer" to them when they are effectively supporting the NLRB's power. The problem is that many of the nouns involved in this kind of regulation are fairly nebulous. This situation shows that such accusations can be made on the basis of "feels" and it doesn't even matter if it comes down to factual readings of communication or interpretations of science.
Effectively, an "everyone is exactly equal" ideological nonsense science has now been instantiated into de-facto law in the US through regulatory action, and the NLRB has furthermore supported the notion that you can be fired for disagreeing with it.
>> It seems like HR and "diversity officers" have effectively become the "political officers" of the 21st century left of collectivist grievance politics.
That's contradicted by the reported behaviour of HR in cases of sexual harassment of women engineers by their male colleagues, as for example in the case of Susan Fowler, the Uber engineer who left the company because of harassment and a discriminatory culture. I quote from the relevant post on her website:
When I reported the situation, I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man's first offense, and that they wouldn't feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to.
One HR rep even explicitly told me that it wouldn't be retaliation if I received a negative review later because I had been "given an option".
The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that I was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making, and that if I had ever considered that I might be the problem.
Less than a week after this absurd meeting, my manager scheduled a 1:1 with me, and told me we needed to have a difficult conversation. He told me I was on very thin ice for reporting his manager to HR. California is an at-will employment state, he said, which means we can fire you if you ever do this again.
> There's a case history in the Advice Memo. They didn't make this up just for Google.
There is indeed a case history, and it is very informative with regards to, as you put it, the Board's deference to employers. The Advice memo states "Where an employee's conduct significantly disrupts work processes, creates a hostile work environment, or constitutes racial or sexual discrimination or harassment, the Board has found it unprotected even if it involves concerted activities regarding working conditions. For example, in /Avondale Industries/, the Board held that the employer lawfully discharged a union activist for insubordination based on her unfounded assertion that her foreman was a Klansman; the employer was justifiably concerned about the disruption her remark would cause in the workplace among her fellow African-American employees."
Said case acknowledges that "Foreman Toledo has numerous tattoos on his body, including a swastika on his forearm"! Nonetheless, the Board found in that case that it was the employee's remark that would cause disruption in the workplace, apparently because she accused her foreman of being a Klansman (which she claims he told a group of employees) instead of a Nazi.
I find it bizarre that you basically concede the ground that it is similar to a thought crime and feel no need to defend your stance that his memo should be classified as "anti-diversity." Or is saying "you can call it a thought crime if you want" authorizing his use of this language, from a position of moral authority?
This amorphous right commenters on this thread seem to think Damore had not to be fired, he didn't have. That's what employment at will means.
You don't even know whether I think his termination was reasonable. All you know is that I believe --- and so does the NLRB in this instance --- he did not enjoy special protections against unreasonable termination.
What I find especially funny about this is that Damore is a conservative, lobbying for more protections for conservatives in the workplace. But employment at will isn't just a conservative value --- it's a signpost conservative value, one of the basic principles on which we organize our market economy. It is, in conservative thought circles, one of the pillars on which American entrepreneurship rests, and a reason that the US excels over Europe in commercial dynamism.
Damore is in this instance a conservative the same way the nihilists in The Big Lebowski were nihilistic. But he gave up his toe! He expected a million dollars!
But employment at will isn't just a conservative value --- it's a signpost conservative value, one of the basic principles on which we organize our market economy.
What went on with James Damore has nothing to do with the "good workings" of the employment marketplace. Rather, it's the abuse of at-will employment by groups to push political agendas through coercion.
Damore is in this instance a conservative the same way the nihilists in The Big Lebowski were nihilistic.
Before the precipitating events, James Damore counted himself a "Classical Liberal." From what I can tell, he may have leaned Libertarian. Honestly, if you were in his shoes, would you think you were treated fairly? I think your answer would be that you wouldn't have been in his shoes. You would have advised James Damore to keep his head down and his mouth shut. The necessity of such a stance is a sign that there's some form of at least mild oppression.
Given a chance, would you stick to your nihilist guns and turn down a billion dollars?
Damore was fired only after the memo went public. Afterwards, there was no way that Damore could do his job as a Google software engineer. No team would take him: the optics would be terrible.
If you can't do your job, you don't get to keep it.
Rather, it's the abuse of at-will employment by groups to push political agendas through coercion. [...] a sign that there's some form of at least mild oppression.
Never mind funny movie nihilism, a few more iterations in this thread and you'll type yourself into espousing what are starting to sound like some of the core tenets of Marxism. And they say internet forum discussions never changed anyone's position!
I'm not conceding to be on your "amorphous right," but the amorphous left seems to put words in everyone's mouth. I haven't seen anyone in this thread say that they are certain that Google broke the law in this case - since they are a private organization. What I have seen a lot of is people reframing and mischaracterizing the memo as "anti-diversity," "sexual harassment," "pseudoscience," etc. I don't need to know if you think his termination was reasonable because I'm not arguing that you were. However, you were arguing that he was cloaking hate speech as science - as you stated, "...were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding his effort to cloak his comments with “scientific” references..." This part is very worthy of debate!
> The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, face-value reading of the memo and impute motivations to him.
Motivation isn't what defines harassment; effect on others is what is relevant to harassment; not only is imputing a motive not necessary to finding harassment in the act of presenting the memo as he did, it isn't relevant to that conclusion.
Motivation isn't what defines harassment; effect on others is what is relevant to harassment
So this is why hysterical ideologues have latched onto "harassment." It basically short-circuits due process and the necessity of proof. It also scores huge emotional points. It's the perfect vehicle for moral panics and witch-hunts and mob behaviors. Is it any wonder, then, that it is now exploited for political gain?
> So this is why hysterical ideologues have latched onto "harassment."
Another reason: because the effect you have on other people is hugely relevant in how people come together as a culture or society (or don’t!), and trying to ignore it leads to pathological behavior.
> It basically short-circuits due process and the necessity of proof.
No, it doesn't. Like many torts (and a few crimes) the things that have to be proven for harassment may not (there are several different patterns that qualify as harassment) include any particular mental state on the part of the alleged harrasser, but it still requires probing the elements of the offense and isn't any differently situated than other civil wrongs when it comes to due process.
Is there legal backing to your assertion, or is that just your opinion? Clearly that can’t be true either. Otherwise, I can claim that socks and sandals are offending me, and it becomes your problem to modify your attire, not my problem to tolerate it.
I'll correct what I said above; either purpose or effect can be a decisive component of harassment; effect is more commonly used because it is easier to demonstrate, and the chararcterization of Damore’s memo as harassment has consistently been based on the claimed effect of contributing to an “intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment”, not a characterization of purpose.
The regulatory definition is at 29 CFR § 1604.11(a), reading, in relevant part: “(a) Harassment on the basis of sex is a violation of section 703 of title VII. Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when [...] such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.” (Note that while the first sentence refers to harassment on the basis of sex, the second only directly refers to sexual harassment; the same principles, though, are consistently applied to sex/gender-based harassment—and to harassment based on any other characteristic protected against discrimination by Title VII.)
> Otherwise, I can claim that socks and sandals are offending me, and it becomes your problem to modify your attire, not my problem to tolerate it.
That's not the case because the standard applied for job as tile environment harassment is a hybrid objective/subjective standard in which it must be shown both that the victim was actually offended and that a reasonable person in their position would be offended.
Given that there's nothing criminal in any of the allegations, I don't see how _crime_ is even applicable in your label.
Maybe a better question might be how is that not "thought-firing?"
Your questions and concerns would be alarming and frightening to me if Damore had received a criminal indictment. He didn't, so I'm much less concerned about the case.
Your questions and concerns would be alarming and frightening to me if Damore had received a criminal indictment. He didn't, so I'm much less concerned about the case.
That's the old canard about how, "it isn't the government." Google isn't the government, but they have incredibly broad power over modern media. Speech isn't free if it becomes open season on you by powerful entities for exercising it. The fact that Google and YouTube are such extreme ideological echo chambers calls to question their stewardship of so much power in our society.
Google (at least in this case) wasn't acting in their capacity as a power-broker over wider internet speech and discourse.
They were acting in their capacity as an employer. Their power over society as an employer is much more limited and doesn't concern me.
If you want to have a conversation over whether twitter and Google as companies have enough power that their actions should be judged in a 1A context that's fine. We can have that conversation. But it's not the one that's being had in this thread or this discussion.
The fact that so many of Google's employees could demonstrate the degree of ideological hysteria which they demonstrated greatly concerns me, and has a direct bearing on the 1A context.
It does not, because there's no 1A issue as the first amendment does not grant you any protections from your employer.
Now, as I said before, if you want to have a discussion about whether Twitter and Google and other modern media companies should have some 1A responsibilities in their role as gatekeepers to online speech, that's a discussion that's entirely separate† from Twitter and Google's responsibilities to their employees.
†I would still argue that, despite their relative power over online discussions, Twitter and Google as private entities are not bound by the first amendment in any capacity—nor should they be.
Privates entities aren't required to provide you a soapbox.
It does not, because there's no 1A issue as the first amendment does not grant you any protections from your employer.
I was clearly referring to the greater issue with regards to Google's general power in our culture and what the attitude within Google which was revealed in this event might mean. Not only did you state that you did not want to have that discussion, but then you just tried to shove words in my mouth as if I were trying to have your different discussion and advocating an unsupportable point.
Privates entities aren't required to provide you a soapbox.
Private entities shouldn't be allowed to knock down everyone else's soapbox, which is precisely what Google's market power allows them to more or less do.
> The fact that Google and YouTube are such extreme ideological echo chambers calls to question their stewardship of so much power in our society
Ridiculous nonsense.
Google and YouTube happily allow conservative, alt-right, fringe-right, pretty much any content on their platform. Fox News, Breitbart, Alex Jones, Milo etc all have channels on YouTube.
And there is zero evidence that Google is deliberately prioritising "left wing" content over other types.
>> You will fall in line, and you don't even dare sound like you're secretly against us. How is that not "thought-crime?"
Well, to begin with because nobody said it's a crime, rather a valid reason for his employment to fire him.
Second, "thought-crime" refers to the rules of a society with a certain type of government (an imaginary one, in Orwell's book). Google is not a society, it's a private company and you can't really think of its internal rules as defining crime, or being laws etc.
Second, "thought-crime" refers to the rules of a society with a certain type of government (an imaginary one, in Orwell's book)
You know full well that it has come to mean a certain form of deliberately suppressing dissent through coercive means.
Google is not a society, it's a private company and you can't really think of its internal rules as defining crime, or being laws etc.
But our society is a society. Apparently, Google is full of ideologues who I wouldn't expect to have any qualms about unnerving forms of social engineering society, to make it fit their particular political agenda.
> I find this disturbing.
I find this very disturbing as well. The only way that even the most ardent opponents of Damore's memo can come to a "discriminatory" and "harassment" interpretation, is to disregard a literal, face-value reading of the memo and impute motivations to him. So basically, any employee commentary on an employer's policies with regards to the EEO's goals can be held to be "discriminatory" and "harassment" because it "sounds bad" and "sounds like" it's against EEO's goals, even if that can't be demonstrated on a factual basis.
You will fall in line, and you don't even dare sound like you're secretly against us. How is that not "thought-crime?"