Debate me instead of downvoting please. Downvoting is like forfeiting a discussion and shows that you question your own narrative.
On the surface – that's asking for both more and less diversity, however Google rejects the idea that conservative views (that are compatible with Google's HR policies) are discouraged, which would suggest there isn't more diversity needed there.
You then judged it based on a bunch of re-tellings, believe it says something it doesn't and that this is somehow virtuous and worthy of proclamation. Kind of discouraging.
It didn't say Google should stop encouraging women to apply. That's simply not true. It did say it should stop giving women specific non-encouragement based advantages, like letting them proceed even after failing an interview when a man would have been dropped. It also said lots of other things. Why don't you read it yourself, and then judge it based on that?
Even if interviewers had no idea who they were interviewing, which is possible but logistically awkward (Aline Lerner posted some data on this), the recruiters would know, and they're the ones making the decisions around how the recruiting process proceeds.
There is no lower bar or quota. All of the diversity programs he mentioned are to encourage more applications.
He actually asked for something different - for programs and classes to remain but for the exclusions based on race and gender (i.e. no men allowed) to be eliminated. He also pointed out that even Google's resources are finite, and thus the costs and benefits of diversity programmes should be judged rationally, e.g. he suggests that mandatory 'unconscious bias' training doesn't seem to have made any difference. So is it worth requiring it? These are reasonable questions anyone can ask.
It's not that I didn't want to read another viewpoint - if well done I like my views being challenged, but this was not that.
Edit: referring to Google specifically
I used to be at Google. I heard the same thing from recruiters themselves. That a woman could fail an interview but still make it through to the next rounds. Their justification for this was like so:
1. This isn't discrimination because the final hiring decision by the committee takes into account all interviews, so the bar is equal at that point.
2. Our lawyers say this is totally OK.
I heard this many years ago, when I first joined Google and was learning how to be an interviewer. It disquieted me a little but I didn't challenge it - I figured, if the lawyers say it's OK, then it's OK. And the logic that in the end, the final decision was unbiased was something I accepted.
Well, I was young and naive. If men are being dropped and women are not, then more women will make it through to the final hiring decision than would naturally occur, that's the entire point of doing it. This is, in effect, a way to lower the bar for women - literally, men and women can jump to the same height and one will cross the bar and one won't, based on gender.
That's what Damore meant when he said the bar was being lowered by reducing the false negative rate.
Is it illegal? I have no idea. But it's definitely not fair on men.
There are also programs to find more applicants, but this isn't critical of those programs.
So you didn't read it? Because ... you were offended or because of practical reasons (like you are illiterate) ?
I don't think that the memo asked for "less diversity" just not forced diversity, at least not the way it is forced at google.
> , however Google rejects the idea that conservative views (that are compatible with Google's HR policies) are discouraged
I have a hard time believing that since they already take a hard stance against their conservative users. Also have you seen some of the tweets from the opposite forces at google? I don't think so...