Google managers kept blacklists of conservative employees
businessinsider.com.au
businessinsider.com.au
If even half of that is true, then I'm really grateful that this lawsuit is bringing these actions to light, this is unacceptable.
EDIT: Really unfortunate that this article got flagged. It's important and we should be able to discuss it.
EDIT. Not commenting on it, but https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTCqvlRXUAILVUL.jpg:large . The fact that there is open discussion on terroristic activities, and the fact that it's not removed over the course of 24 hours. What in the fuck?
Can you elaborate on what of that is the discussion of terroristic activites? Because that seems to be quiet a loose reading of the screenshot.
If I changed it up to say something like "I've never been apart of a military or war effort..." and then someone follows up with "Get in touch with your local Army of God (Christian terrorist group in the US)..." it doesn't take much reading between the lines.
The rest of it...not so much. There is a discussion of a belief "I won't say violence has no place" There is not a discussion of 'The use of intentional, indiscriminate violence as a means to create fear to achieve political religious, or ideological aims'
Fascism is fun: its appeal has the same root as teamwork. Joining up with like-minded people to counter a common enemy, and prioritizing ends over means, is how you get to fascism.
A handy rule of thumb is to flip the motivation in a sentence to its ideological opposite, preferably one that you don't like. If the meaning of the sentence is then abhorrent, rather than acceptable dissent, it's probably a couple of steps too far even when you agree with the sentiment.
Maybe the first part could be considered acceptable but towards the end it seems that they know what they are discussing. And even the fact that the first reply is not "Everything is not so bad, if you feel disheartened, there are numerous local community organization blah blah blah" but "get in touch with your local antifa" says a lot.
While I'm pretty surprised that some of these screencapped discussions and memes would come up in a work environment (does Google have their own internal social network?), I think many of them are worthy of a more level-headed conversation instead of just outraged captions. (For example: why should Google allow disturbing individuals like Steve Bannon on their premises? Or: if a person was actually fired for serial harassment, shouldn't other companies be made to know? Or: why should Google not correct their own frequently erroneous featured snippets? Or even: why should people be passively OK with weirdly sexualized comments aimed at their baby?) I also think that these incidents tend to be born out of good and noble intentions: a belief that justice in the world can be more easily achieved by leveraging institutional power, not a lust for political control and uniformity of thought as some would paint it. In my opinion, as much as these images might anger (especially out of context), they ought to be read and discussed in a more charitable light.
On the other hand, it's true that some of this stuff is rather insufferable, back-patty, and seeping with privilege. Get over yourself, Google. You're a glorified multinational ad corp, not the technical Mecca and savior of the free world.
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2014-01/enha...
I think a lot of people would take issue with a snotty teenager telling them they are ignorant if they don't agree that they have privilege. I would also think that a professional setting like Google would not allow garbage like this in official company communication channels.
The SSC blog's discussions are probably higher quality, but the blog's UI makes it difficult to track ongoing conversations, unlike Reddit.
What happened to just showing up, doing the work, then going home?
I sell loans, why do I care about my customer's religion asks the banker, right before finding out that the Quran has specific provisions for appropriately lending and borrowing money.
Edit: His lawyer has made multiple misrepresentations of voter fraud in California, going as far as accusing innocent individuals of voter fraud. She's been investigated by the CA State Bar several times for unethical behavior. As for Damore, he's made several false statements about his time at treatment at Google that have been refuted by multiple non-biased sources.
This is going to be very interesting...
No, you can't predict a person's opinions by their ethnicity and gender. Nicky Haley is an Indian-American woman, and is a leading GOP politician and supporter of President Trump. Clarence Thomas is an African-American male, and possibly the most partisan conservative on the Supreme Court.
But it's not a fact yet, just accusations as you say.
I mean, I've heard Damore be accused of all kinds of things, but I haven't heard anyone say he's a fraud before. I just assumed it's a detail that got lost in the discussion about whether or not he's a terrible sexist and/or racist. I haven't heard of his lawyer before so I wouldn't know anything about that.
Mods: Can you change the title to be more accurate and unflag?
This entire lawsuit seems predicated on the idea that people having non-conservative views is somehow discrimination against conservatives.
It's calvinball as a legal theory.
Example: https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950448063516172288
Damore made such arguments in his manifesto, and based them on research that he utterly misinterpreted. While the cited post may be glib, it is actually backed by solid research on innovation and diversity of experience and thought (e.g., intellectual, racial, gender, etc.). Under Damore's own original argument that he was there shouldn't be any problem with saying that.
Damore was fired for making google look bad, not for his beliefs, and not even for being an obnoxious coworker.
"Without diverse leadership, women are 20% less likely than straight white men to win endorsement for their ideas; people of color are 24% less likely; and LGBTs are 21% less likely. This costs their companies crucial market opportunities, because inherently diverse contributors understand the unmet needs in under-leveraged markets. We’ve found that when at least one member of a team has traits in common with the end user, the entire team better understands that user. A team with a member who shares a client’s ethnicity is 152% likelier than another team to understand that client." [0]
"In this study, we investigated whether the variety of ideas and the innovative qualities of team design solutions are related to team gender diversity. The research participants were 148 engineering students working in 37 teams. These teams were identified as gender balanced or all-male based on their gender composition. Their idea generation outcomes and final design solutions were evaluated using an established variety metric and a new innovation potential metric developed by the authors... Results suggest that diversity, defined by gender alone, may not increase the innovation potential of student design teams but may support innovation in the presence of other factors. Efforts should focus on helping teams better utilize their diversity to improve their ability to be innovative." [1]
"Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women board directors attained significantly higher financial performance, on average, than those with the lowest representation of women board directors," [2]
"We acknowledge that these findings, though consistent, aren’t proof of a direct relationship between diversity and financial success. At high-performing companies, the board or CEO may simply have greater latitude to pursue diversity initiatives, and other management innovations may contribute more directly to superior results. We will continue to explore these issues in further research.
As a starting point, and to get a reality check on the aggregate data, we looked for evidence of diversity’s influence on the actions of individual companies during the volatile 2008–10 time frame our analysis covered. In a number of cases, diversity appeared to play a critical role. At adidas, one of the companies that ranked in our top quartile in diversity and performance, senior leaders have designated diversity as a strategic goal and started building it into the guts of the organization. ... To spur innovation across global markets, adidas is also ensuring diversity in its design centers—and has won a number of awards for product creativity....
One global food company that ranked in the top quartile for diversity completed a series of successful international joint ventures between 2008 and 2010. These actions advanced a strategic goal of geographic decentralization and risk diversification, while ensuring that its products fit the varying preferences of local cultures and markets. The more diverse footprint paid operational dividends as well: at some of these joint ventures’ plants, the company discovered highly efficient manufacturing processes, which it absorbed and then disseminated across its own manufacturing base. Similarly, a leading telecommunications company whose top team hailed from a number of different nations significantly expanded its global network infrastructure and was able to meet ambitious growth targets in emerging markets. " [3]
"Using laboratory experiments, Phillips and her research collaborator, Clayman Institute affiliate Margaret Neale, analyzed the connections between race and innovation. They found that racially homogeneous groups tend to fall into the trap of “group think,” or a situation that occurs “when a group values harmony and coherence over accurate analysis and critical evaluation.” The authors argue that being around others who are similar tricks us into thinking everyone else shares the same information and perspectives. Group think can lead individuals to ignore missing information or alternate explanations that force the development of creative solutions. Furthermore, the consequences of group think are that people are not inclined to contribute individual insights that veer from the group norm or the group’s accepted thoughts. This is especially true of women and minorities, who already are often outsiders and are often underrepresented in many workplaces; to offer criticism risks the potential of being seen as not a team player." [4]
So you have it with students, companies, gender, race, its not about white-male specifically, its about group think. The call out for 'white male 40s' is because that is so often the dominant group in the room in Tech. If tech was dominantly filled with 26 year old black non gender conforming people you would have the exact same concern. Groupthink is real, and when the groupthink group also posess the identity that is how society is normatively represented, its difficult to see.
Those are literally the bookmarks I already had on hand. I would suggest reading on the issue from scholarly sources a little. Be cautious of trusting other people's summations of research, especially those that reinforce your own beliefs.
[0] https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation
[1] Fila, N. D., & Purzer, S. (2014). The relationship between team gender diversity, idea variety, and potential for design innovation. International Journal of Engineering Education, 30(6A), 1405–1418. Retrieved from http://www.ijee.ie/
[2] http://www.catalyst.org/media/companies-more-women-board-dir...
[3] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our...
[4] http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2017/how-does-diversity-spur...
You can claim that I somehow changed the meaning of the original bigoted statement but I didn't. It's a very simple, straightforward bashing of white males.
PS. Sorry for the poor sentencing structure, not as fluid in English as I used to be
Labor protections are a major plank of the left and should Damore win it would further help enshrine those labor protections in tort and give the left firepower to say "Look, these laws protect conservatives too! Just look at Damore!" The right, historically, prefers an environment where employment is fully at-will and at the discretion of the employer: this lawsuit undercuts that view. I think some see this as the left being "hoisted by one's own petard" but it's not like liberals are going to turn around and abandon labor rights as a reaction to Damore... quite the contrary.
I see Damore's lawsuit as a byproduct of the diminished political conviction of the contemporary right. As a self-described classical liberal, Damore should, in theory, treat his employment as at-will as that is consistent with his stated political ideology. This is in large part why the left continues to win, and why the right acts more and more like the left: When faced with adversity, the right adopts left-wing views to score modest Pyrrhic victories, thus normalizing left-wing views.
The one area where the right isn't doing this stuff is abortion: an area where the right seems to be gaining ground. Women's access to abortion has been declining (unfortunately, IMO) in many states.
I wish Mr. Damore the best of luck in his endeavours. Employment discrimination lawsuits are really difficult to win in court, even if it seems "open and shut" to a layperson. Complicating matters, it looks like Google's lawyers are raring for a fight... many businesses just settle even if they feel they'll be cleared in court.
That's hard to see in the U.S., with the Republican's shift far to the right and overwhelming political domination (control of the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, and in over 30 state both houses and the Governor's mansion), and with neo-fascism and white nationalism, once way beyond the pale, now trendy.
Also it's hard to see in Europe, where neo-fascist and white nationalist parties actually have seats in national legislatures, even run some executive branches, and include the Foreign Minister of the UK.
In the US things are more complicated: we have gerrymandering which keeps the house Republican despite Democratic candidates winning more votes overall. We have governors that were largely propped up with corporate money. The supreme court is large a side-effect of those structural issues (Obama would have picked a liberal judge of the dems had the house in '16)
Besides you don't think there are workplaces where it's a blackmark to be a progressive? Why don't you come over to some finance jobs?
You are putting quite a lot of meaning into my sentence that isn't there, projecting is never useful in a discussion.
Do they believe in climate change? Do they vote for Trump? Do they think universal health coverage is more efficient? etc. What kind of concrete things do they support/oppose?
The word "Liberal" and it's various derivations are all over the place generally though for weird historical reasons.
With the little letters, the split between conservative and liberal normally comes down to how the "rules of the game" are seen. Little-c conservatives are willing to cheat and change the rules of the game and do whatever necessary for their tribe to win. Little-l liberals are not willing to cheat, and see the 'rules' being fair as more important than whether their tribe rules supreme or not. There's lots of research supporting a notion that this sort of divide is very real in people, potentially even biological in origin (though I do not personally believe we are even capable of determining something like that yet), and active successful exploitation of the idea by advertisers, politicians, and others seeking to influence the public for one reason or another.
I've got a degree in political science, and I would not agree that it captures the historical or current import of those terms well either in terms of overt ideology or underlying motivation. Both conservatives and liberals have (classically and currently) seen their views as vindicating the proper view of individual rights, advancing the best interest of the common society, and advancing the best interest of the individual; of course, liberals and conservatives have very different views of what individuals rights are and what the good of the individual and community consist in; the liberal view favors flatter, broader distribution of political and economic power, and detachment of power from inherited station; the conservative view favors a narrower concentration of power in those viewed as best equipped to apply it, and views inherited traits as often central to that qualification.
Okay.
>I said that currently the progressive-left is sacrificing reason and that it will lead to a rise to the right.
No they're not. How is it that you think the 'progressive-left' is sacrificing reason?
Where do you want to start?
- They actively contributed to an increased homicide rate and made neighborhoods more dangerous for minorities by pushing a false anti-police narrative, engaged in anti-police protests, sentiment, and actions. Their actions resulted in a pullback in policing in dangerous neighborhoods and massive spikes in crime rates. This is a view shared by many minorities, who wish for the police to return to their neighborhoods, so that they can feel safe. Source? How about the right-wing rag NPR:
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/31/574824963/baltimore-residents...
- They actively push pseudo-social science into fields where rigor, exactness, and soundness is most important, such as engineering, where errors can have catastrophic consequences:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19378629.2017.14...
- They viciously attack on ideological grounds any attempts at objective assessment when the statistics do not fit their narrative. Examples? There are hundreds, but how about professor David Gillhorn at the University of Birmingham, who says math serves "white interests" and:
“frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the facade of supposed quantitative objectivity.”
- They have, particularly on college campuses, collectively lost their minds. Please see the Evergreen State College incident, along with dozens of others.
- Most of their social science experiments are absolute junk:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
Do you want me to keep going?
Yes, I'd really like to gather all this up and look into it.
To broaden the discussion a bit, I think that generally there is a trend of the 'progressive-left' censoring things they don't agree on.
But, reason supports freedom of speech and of ideas. It does not support censorship. It supports even the free expression of even the most odious ideas, so that they may be addressed rationally. The only exceptions to this are very few and involve our human weakness of certain speech in close physical quarters or when packed into physically close groups being able to rise above speech to reach the level of overriding the rational faculties of the listener. That's where things like not shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater lie. It results in a biological disabling of the forebrain when immediate physical mortal danger is at play. That can never, ever, ever happen when a statement is read. Not from a poster, paper, book, pamphlet, and certainly not from a screen.
There is an interesting argument to be made, though it is not really being made by any significant number that I've encountered, that the psychological manipulations of social media - the intentional things they do to optimize driving people to more extreme opinions and inundating people with false information in order to maximize engagement at the expense of absolutely anything else - might need to be treated differently, but even there the issue is not the speech. It's the manipulative analysis and other practices.
I don't even think the real primary motivation of most censorship of repugnant ideas online is motivated by a belief like "these ideas are wrong and we must not expose people to them, else they may adopt them". I think the mindset is more along the lines of "these ideas are wrong... I feel. But I cannot actually justify. And I fear if someone challenges me to dispute them, I will fail."
Reason also supports an absolute hard line distinction between the real and the fictional, a line which is increasingly ignored, though I chalk that up to factors that mostly go across political divisions. Both sides attribute the negative traits and consequences of real examples of things to images of those things without a second thought, conflating imagery and reality to a degree that it really makes me wonder if they could even explain what the difference is... or if they believe there is any difference.
Also, this idea that finance is a cult of old stodgy conservatives is hilarious and patently untrue. Finance folks are usually comprised of wealthy and well-educated people living in major urban areas, particularly NYC, inline with the demographics of coastal liberals. Most are some form of libertarian, and generally progressive on most social issues. Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs) is a registered Democrat, Jamie Dimon (CEO of JP Morgan) is a democrat, James Gorman (CEO of Morgan Stanley) regulrarly gives money to democrats and contributed to Hillary Clinton (1), as does Michael Corbat, the CEO of Citigroup.
(1) https://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/james-...
(2)https://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/michae...
Former Goldman banker here, I'm calling bullshit on this point. In mainstream Wall Street you can be super left-wing and do just fine with office politics.
Sure, "some finance jobs" are at small funds run by cranky old rightwing baby boomers who get their news from Drudge, but it's a real stretch to say that having strong leftwing views would be a meaningful impediment to a great career on the Street. I can think of many specific examples both at GS and elsewhere.
The team I was working with during Brexit was very pro-remain, for instance, and that tends to be largely (but not exclusively) a position more popular on the left.
This is interesting to me as one of the underdiscussed parts of the Google-Damore memo is the part where he says "yes, the right-wing are stupid and irrational about climate change, which is obviously true, but the left-wing are also anti-science about this stuff". He supported this both-sides-are-the-same type argument (at least in an earlier version, I noticed the link seems to not be there in all of them) with a link to a piece by John Tierny, in which half the word count was dedicated to supporting climate change denial, and building a case that the left-wing was stupid for thinking it occured.
So even within the (broadly defined) right, you have disagreements on basic facts and reason.
At a previous employer, we had someone who was dyed in the wool Republican that was outspoken in his personal life about "the blue line" and "all lives matter". When it came to a discussion for a promotion for a senior engineering role for this individual, we had another manager who felt uncomfortable having an employee with the views this guy shared. Mind you, at work, he was pretty polite and you only got an insight into his life if you accepted his friend request or saw the bumpersticker on his car in the garage.
Ref:
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/04/mozill...
This is all speculation yet the title reads as fact. I'm not saying they didn't do it but let's get a title change to what is really happening here.
As for the pictures, the only one in the article has nothing to do with black-lists of conservatives, it reads to me like keeping a list of ah*s. In this case, specifically those who make the propagation of a company value difficult. That screenshot doesn't say anything about political affiliation or beliefs. It is focused on actions. If you think any company doesn't have an implicit or even explicit list of 'capable but frustrating employees' you are in for a shock.
Being a conservative may well be a protected class in California, but being a jerk and interfering with the entirely legal strategic goals set by management isn't. The first is about the views you hold, and should be protected. The second is about the things you do at work, and shouldn't be protected.
<h1>Famous person murders family member</h1>
<h4>court case alleges</h4>
That said, Google should have an opportunity to counter the claims if they have a defense and evidence to support it.
Is that based on some experience in HR, employment lawsuits, or the law?
So, if there's no rebuttal (e.g. Google's lawyer doesn't come back and say "this is a fake screenshot" or "it's taken out of context" or "the hiring practice is not illegal for this reason" or "this person has no say over what the hiring practice is" or whatever), those screenshots would be the only evidence at trial. Uncontested, they depict a company that doesn’t want to hire white people because they are white. Google has to provide evidence to the contrary in their response.
That's how any court proceeding works. All I'm saying about the lawsuit is that it's not on-its-face without merit. That doesn't mean Damore is right, it just means Google has to offer a defense since the plantiff has at least shown that there is a reason to believe the claims might be true and demonstrate illegal behavior on Google's part.
Google's lawyer tries the case in court, not on Twitter. The lack of debate doesn't signify anything.
Expressing anti-diversity sentiments does create a hostile environment. I don't understand why this is so hard for people to grasp.
EDIT: instead of replying to each of you who say this doesn't happen, please look at my link of the evidence being submitted in this case to see that it does happen (or someone is faking a ton of evidence): https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121
> "diversity" has come to mean "bash white males"
I've heard many partisans against diversity say that, but it has not been something I've observed myself.
IMHO and IME, it's the reverse: Criticism of white men is limited because it will alienate and provoke too many powerful people (white men having an large bmajority of power). Racism and sexism are very widespread and overwhelming, but many white guys are somehow not very aware of it. Look at what's been happening with women right under everyone's noses for all this time, and the #metoo movement is just bringing it to light; women are just now criticizing these men. There should have been more criticism for many years.
Did you look into the lawsuit? There are screenshots of people, who appear to be very pro-diversity, saying exactly this.
If I was you, I'd make it my priority to find out why ohers think different to myself. I really think it would be the best thing to do for anyone, for any subject or persons.
The not even amateur psychologist in me suspects that deep down we do know why but that it scares us. At any rate, a good inquiry into oneself would prove enlightening.
If you believe that your company should hire the best and most qualified people for the job, you probably hold "anti-diversity" views.
If you do not believe me, below are some examples of "rascist" and "sexist" statements, per the University of Minnesota:
http://sph.umn.edu/site/docs/hewg/microaggressions.pdf
Examples:
“I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”
“America is a melting pot.”
“Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough.”
“Where were you born?”
“You speak good English.”
1) You (for instance) don't support affirmative action 2) You are a dick to other genders/races in your team
(2) does not always follow (1). Only (2) should be a matter for disciplinary action.
The complaint alleges multiple instances of Google managers declaring that they would exert significant effort to avoid adding white heterosexual men to their teams, and subsequently threatening retaliation against anyone who questioned this effort. The alleged behavior goes far, far beyond avoiding people who have contributed to a hostile workplace -- unless one defines all straight white men as inherently hostile to the workplace.
Where's the line? Is being pro-life a political or a religious beliefs?
Team Edward will argue that there are people for whom their political mindset finds disagreement with certain political precepts to be tautologically hostile, no matter how they are expressed.
Team Jacob will point to the news for an instance of egregious public political expression and say that it's obviously the category of hostility they're defending against.
Around and around we go again...
But are you adding other people making other statements which make the workplace hostile to other individuals? Also, what happens if the misrepresentation of something causes the hostility while the original message does not? Often it life, it isn't what you say, but how you say it or who says it.
It is in some states in USA
I encourage anyone interested in the situation to read the filed suit. The first 20 or so pages are specifically about Damore and it is a very approachable and an interesting read. It also specifies the alleged violated laws / section.
Is not the typical PR answer when you got sued, you spect something like:
"Here at Google we are against any kind of discrimination and we deny the alleged acusations, those do not represent our values"
That is a typical PR answer, but instead they are practicality saying "yes we do all that terrible stuff, so bring it on".
> IS IT FINALLY TIME TO TAKE THE 'SHITTY MEDIA MEN' LIST SERIOUSLY?
http://www.newsweek.com/it-finally-time-take-shitty-media-me...
Feels a bit soviet union-esq to me. But the left seems to be rallying behind ideas like these, lets see how this turns out.
It's definitely illegal to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. I'm thinking the discovery process is going to find a lot of legitimate issues, if the the lawyer bringing the suit has already found stuff like this. Maybe the lawyer was using this blacklist stuff as a way to get more information and find bigger problems.
1. Is Damore against "anti-discrimination provisions in law"? I haven't seen anything to suggest he is. He is against specific anti-discrimination policies at Google, certainly, but his objection to them seemed to be on the basis that they wouldn't be effective and would have other negative effects, not that anti-discrimination is undesirable.
2. If we assume Damore is a "classical liberal" (I think he called himself that in the memo), then he could have an entirely non-ironic desire to see the law enforced that is separate from whether or not he thinks any specific law is wise. This may seem silly (and I personally think it is in cases where a law is obviously stupid and unenforceable), but it's not on-its-face ridiculous, unless there's a quote somewhere that shows he really has contempt for the particular laws he's claiming protection from.
I'd bet right now you're not going to find such a quote, since it seems like he's been planning this lawsuit for months before he got fired, just based on what screenshots were in the lawsuit.
Says who?
Can a progressive company refuse to hire non-progressive people based on cultural unsuitability? Religious organisations seem to think it's ok
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-employmen...
This includes "Political affiliations or activities", and other sources seem to back that up.
Google might be in trouble here.