According to Bloomberg News, Alphabet Inc’s Google fired an employee who wrote an internal memo attacking the Internet giant’s diversification policy, which caused a storm in Silicon Valley.
The employee was Google engineer James Damore, who confirmed his expulsion in an email. He stated that he was fired because he “has long-standing gender stereotypes.” A Google spokesperson did not immediately respond to reporters’ request for comment.
Incidents caused by gender prejudice and employee diversity are endless in Silicon Valley, and the Google incident is just the latest example. In June of this year, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was forced to step down due to a series of sexual harassment, discrimination scandals and aggressive corporate culture. In 2015, Ellen Pao, the interim CEO of the American social networking site Reddit, sued the former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, in a sex discrimination case, which also exposed the issue and prompted more women to come forward. Scream: They are marginalized in male-dominated industries, especially in engineer positions.
Earlier on Monday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to employees stating that parts of Damore’s memo “violated our code of conduct and promoted in our workplace Harmful gender stereotypes are cross-line behaviors.” But he did not specify whether the company took measures against the employee.
Damore’s 10-page memo accused Google of suppressing conservative political views and that physical differences play an important role in the lack of women in the technology industry and leadership positions. This memo was widely circulated within Google and published publicly last weekend, which triggered a storm and forced Google executives to take a clearer stand.
After the controversy widened, Google’s new vice president of diversity, integrity, and corporate governance, Danielle Brown, sent a statement to employees condemning Damore’s views and reiterating the company’s stance on diversity. . On Google’s internal forums, several employees expressed their support for the firing of Damore, and some of them said they would not work with him anymore.
Brown said in a statement: “We firmly believe that diversity and inclusiveness are essential to our success as a company. We will continue to adhere to this position and will be committed to diversification over the long term.”
The publication of this memo and the resulting debate coincided with a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor against Google, accusing the company of systematically discriminating against women. Google denied these allegations, saying that there is no gender difference in pay, but refused to share all pay information with the government. According to the company’s latest employee statistics report, 69% of the company’s employees and 80% of its technical staff are men.
After the memo was released, several Google executives shared an article written by the company’s senior engineer Yonatan Zunger, who recently left the company. Jung said in his blog that according to Damore’s memorandum, he appoints any employee to cooperate with him will “make his conscience uneasy.” He wrote: “You just created a textbook-like hostile workplace environment.” He also said in an email: “Can you imagine working with someone who just publicly questioned your basic abilities?”
Despite this, some right-wing websites in the United States have regarded Damore as a hero, and said that firing him may itself confirm some of the views of his memo that Google’s corporate culture does not provide space for different political views. This result may trigger people to resist Alphabet’s efforts to make its employees more diverse.
In an initial response to the memo, Brown, who joined Google in June this year, said that Google is open to people with “different political views.” However, she left a possibility that Google might punish Damore for violating company policy. She wrote: “But this argument needs to work with the equal employment principles set out in our code of conduct, policies and anti-discrimination laws.”
The topic of Google’s ideological tendency appeared at the company’s shareholders meeting held in June this year. A shareholder asked Google executives whether conservative employees would be welcomed at the company. Google executives said they did not agree with anyone’s unpopular idea.
Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt (Eric Schmidt) said at the time: “The company was founded on the principles of freedom of speech, diversity, inclusiveness, and scientific thinking. You will also find that all other companies in our industry Agree with our principles.”
