James Damore may have a federal case against Google

usnews.com

3 points·rhapsodic··3 comments

"Some people may not see Damore's views as wrong, but Google did, and the company should have the right to fire him. This incident is not about the free speech rights of employees. The Constitution protects speech from government punishment, not private sector employees' speech from consequences handed down by their employer."

In the United States one needs a job in order to survive. If employers can eliminate citizens from the job market for the expression of unpopular ideas then effectively you don't have free speech at all. The First Amendment is hardly relevant to you when you're starving to death.

I happen to disagree with what James Damore has said, not that that should matter in this discussion. My concern is our reaction to Trump extremism is causing us to set precedents we're going to regret in the future. Is this really the environment we wish to setup for ourselves? We'd better be careful.

"My concern is our reaction to Trump extremism is causing us to set precedents"

What, you don't remember the "dongle" incident when a sexist joke said in public at PyCon ended up with two people being fired?

These precedents were long since set and have nothing to do with "Trump extremism".

tl;dr: "So, where does that leave Google with respect to Damore? If protected concerted activity allows individuals to yell racist slurs on the picket line, then workers can probably send a memo criticizing an employer's diversity program to other staff members in an effort to improve work conditions."

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