Sure, if they are publishing documents about how straight people are less effective at their job then they’re causing unnecessary issues in the workplace.
From what I recall in the memo, I'm pretty sure he never said that women were less effective at their tech jobs (fortunately, because there isn't any evidence remotely suggesting that !)
What he did is that, when Google asked for feedback on their mandatory diversity training, he challenged the prevailing view being taught in these classes about why less women get into tech than men (basically: not because of inherent lack of interest but because of societal pressure)
He pointed out that the latest science on "interesting in things vs people" disagrees, and he supported his argument with citations.
In a company that prides itself on making data-based decisions, starting a discussion in this way with a reasonable argument (even if later refuted) ideally shouldn't be a firing offense.
Now, was it politically, humanly, emotionally smart for him to say things in this way without consideration for their impact on coworkers ?
Of course not. But still, I can't help feeling somewhat sympathetic to someone with child-like naiveté who spoke the uncomfortable scientific truth (or at least, a very reasonable theory) that adults don't want to hear.
I'm not saying anything false, but you can clearly see that this is not only a bad faith argument, but actually poisons the discussion, and still it can be argued that indeed we need to be wary about astroturfing and social network manipulations.
I wouldn't have fired Damore, but let's not kid ourselves by saying "we're simply stating facts". Mainly because that's not really the conversation, the tacit implication of "minorities who almost passed the bar", but letting them in anyway, is that the "bar" might be wrong, and that the company might be getting more results with this kind of hires than just measuring "mad hack skillz". Damore rightly points out that "without evidence this is just veiled (left) ideology" the point where he misses is that there has been at least attempts to get this evidence, we can discuss the results and even if they're valid (reproducibility crisis), but Damore just plain ignore's it. The only extension he has to offer about this point is: "[7] Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.”" which is just bullshit by the account of anyone who knows the basics and history of marxism or social science. So these are not even "facts", but youtube tier analysis.