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Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Google employee who, I think most would claim is generally on Google's side of things.

He lied. There are falsehoods that he knew (or had a responsibility to know) were false in a public statement he put his name on. They've been repeatedly corrected both by other employees and by data.

Specifically, he at least lied about a 2 week requirement for paper reviews in the internal publication approval process. While that's listed as a further requirement, they don't "normally" require two weeks.

(I wouldn't, for example call the resignation statements lies. Those were unintentional falsehoods)

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I doubt we will come to any common ground here. If you think that Timnit Gebru did not resign, it’s probably not possible for us to convince each other of anything, given that I view that as a core, irrefutable fact bolstered by tons of corroborating accounts. The idea that whether it was or wasn’t a resignation (it irrefutably was) can even be called into question whatsoever is completely incompatible with the facts. That attempt to subvert reality was retrofitted onto the situation later, once the consequences of her inappropriate actions had set in for Gebru.

I'll just point out that Google itself has backed off on statements that she resigned. Sundar's email (the most recent public comms) limit itself to describing it as "her departure", and my understanding of California law is that her "departure" would be classified as a dismissal, not a resignation, though ultimately this depends on very particular specifics that aren't public, such as when her last paydate was, however what I've seen seems to suggest that it would lean towards dismissal. [0]

For what its worth, I don't think "threatening to resign" is the same as resignation. Much as I don't think "threatening to shoot someone" is attempted homicide.

[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-mem...

That comment from Sundar bolsters the fact she resigned. People were raking him over the coals to reverse the earlier claims of resignation to say she was fired, and seeing the CEO refuse to do that is pretty huge evidence of how secure the legal team must feel that calling it a resignation is completely correct and needs no retraction or correction.

I don't see how the CEO refusing to continue to say she resigned bolsters the claim she resigned.

> calling it a resignation is completely correct and needs no retraction or correction.

Alternatively: publicly calling it a firing is essentially an admission of guilt. That's the one thing Google's lawyers would insist Google cannot do.

Presumably neither one of us are the experts on EEOC and employment litigation strategies. So instead I'm going to take the statements at face value. And at face value: Google is no longer willing to state that Dr.Gebru resigned. Anything else is spin.

The CEO didn’t refuse to say she resigned. He refused to say she was fired and refused to contradict earlier statements of her resignation.

> He refused to say she was fired

I agree! He also refused to say she resigned. Fancy that!

The important thing to note is that one of these was a change in behavior and one was not.

It’s disgusting that you literally have two Google employees providing you the truth and you just keep saying “No, you must be mistaken.” I have eyes, I can read. I have a brain that functions very well. A lie is a lie is a lie. And even if lawyers some how manage to button this up, it’s still a lie in the court of public opinion...

EDIT: Sorry, I understand that you don’t have as much information as us and you’re just going off based on tweets and stuff. But come on. It’s insulting to be lied to like that. I hope you can understand that feeling at least.

I think (know for a fact) they were lies also. There was no huge list of demands.

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