Google is a private company. They have no obligation and having an employee that does not get along pretty obvious has to go.
Why also nobody is going to hire him.
My hotel is a private company and I've found my guests and employees prefer not to interact with black people. Glad you support my right to refuse black guests.
But now you're getting into the "free speech for me, not for thee" part. You're basically saying that Damore is entitled to free speech and protection, but that Google and his former co-workers are not. Remember, who you work with is part of the freedom of association which is a component of free speech.
Firing someone is speech? A whole lot of laws disagree with you about that.
Firing someone is part of the right to free association.
It's limited. You don't get to fire someone for being black, or Jewish, or male, and crucially in California, for political speech you disagree with.
This is a strawman I'm very hard pressed to find anyone in HN at least who would deny Goolgle's right or another other party's right of writing a rebuttal to his claims. A free and open internal debate is exactly what Damore was trying to start. Firing to me at least is not speech, it's an inherently violent act.
Google is trying to run a company and having someone like Damore does not help that cause.
It's not a strawman if plenty of people in this comment section are making the exact argument. And if I can't fire an employee for being hostile to my other employees, then I do not have freedom of association.
You do not have pure freedom of association. Both a set of laws and our culture do not allow you to refuse to do business with people.
Yes. However, none of those laws prevent you from firing someone who is creating a hostile work environment for your other employees.
freedom of association is incidental to my initial response. I was speaking about freedom of speech they are different things.