Nobody is arguing that he is a victim of his "free speech rights" being violated.
People are arguing that Google is acting like a thug.
People are arguing that Google is acting like a thug.
A more apt comparison is if that trans person disseminated a controversial manifesto about gender theory on company time with company services.
You seem to be taking the perspective that evil people must be fired, and other people shouldn't. Which may be defensible, but off-topic to this particular thread.
Spare me the extrapolation. My position is clear: Stupid people should be fired.
I don't see what's so controversial about the "manifesto." And it's not a manifesto, it's a pro-diversity memo that questions the implication that gender representation in software engineering must be 50/50 or there's clearly some sort of discrimination going on.
Perhaps, like the author of the article, you haven't actually read the "manifesto." I'll be charitable and assume that you did: what, in your mind, do you fundamentally believe is controversial in the memo, and is it controversial because it spits in the face of the facts, or is it controversial because they're uncomfortable facts, for you personally?
It's controversy is in the assertion that there is a class of people at Google who hold positions that they are not deserving of.
But that's not what the "manifesto" is asserting, at all.
The memo is questioning the wisdom of equal sex representation in a particular career choice, considering biological predispositions. At no point does the manifesto assert that genders, races, or classes of people are holding positions that they do not deserve at Google.
What it does assert is that there are biological predispositions, personality types are brought up, and questions the wisdom of an even split of representation, just by considering the rate of women coming out of uni with a related degree.
Again: at no point does the author assert your claims. What it does talk about is preferences, and biological predispositions. It also talks in generalities, but mentions individuals. It does not say "all women have these personality types and these interests therefore this explains the gap". It simply says that women are biologically predisposed to certain personality types, and interests, and it MAY explain the gap.
If this were true, and even it were not (allowing for other explanations), it would be unwise to operate solely on the assumption that there's some sort of early or late discrimination going on which causes women to avoid entering this particular career.
So, are you upset because this makes you uncomfortable about biological predispositions, particularly the personality types that the author originally brought up, or do you hold that such a position flies in the face of the facts? If it's the latter, you can spare talking about your favorite social science models, because unfortunately they're not the "facts" we're looking for. Actually, they're not facts at all.
Becuase I wouldn't.
No one has claimed that the women who enter it perform poorly in this particular career, or that anyone has positions that they did not deserve at Google. The author did not even come close to anything resembling sexism, racism, or other related terms that have been reduced to buzzwords at this point.
You, and others, were the ones who put these words into the author's mouth. I don't blame you, outrage culture is everywhere, dishonest media loves ad impressions, and it must feel good to have a common enemy that you can project when anyone questions the fundamental assumptions that you're operating on and virtue signal about the evil nazi on Twitter.
And for the record, I disagree with the author's proposed solutions to tackling this particular gap. This is a really hard problem. But that doesn't mean that I do not recognize that part of what he's saying is the objective truth, and that there are biases that could be clouding better solutions for tackling this purported gender gap in software engineering, if there's anything to be solved.
He was fired for poor judgement, for using company services and time to write a broad and controversial memo that contradicts Google's corporate policy and goals as a company. What he wrote is almost immaterial. California law protects him when he does it on his own time. That would have prevented him from being fired, or at least provided a legitimate grievance if he was.
Is it funny because you can't actually source a quote from the memo proving any of your implications? I think it is.
>That you don't see what you're doing as a form of virtue signaling
Virtue signaling requires the signaling to, hopefully, elevate one's status within an in-group. Considering I don't blather on social media all day about political shit, it'd be pretty hard for this to be the case, and the rare time that I do, I prefer to do it unrelated to my real name, precisely because of vitriol shit out by both "sides", faux progressives and alt-right or whatever you want to call them.
But please, continue to believe that many faux-progressives were not acting like thugs in this particular debacle.
>He was fired
He was fired because immature employees couldn't have an honest discussion, and then called up a bunch of news orgs to get public opinions on their side and summon a shitstorm before anyone even saw the memo. Firing him just proves him right.