Google sacks infamous anti-diversity engineer

by Santi Arnaiz10 Aug 2017

Most Discussed

• Tharman blasts HR in Budget attack on ageism
  HR leaders have been urged by Deputy PM Tharman Shanmugaratnam to stop their “unstated discrimination” against older workers looking for jobs.
• Are you asking illegal interview questions?
  Have you ever asked a job applicant how old they are? If you have, you might be breaking the law. A leading Singapore employment lawyer looks at which interview questions could land you in hot water.

In a move surprising no one, Google fired the senior software engineer that recently went viral for his 10-page missive entitled, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber”. The engineer, James Damore, confirmed his firing in an email to Bloomberg, claiming he was let go for “perpetuating gender stereotypes”.

In his now-infamous memo, Damore argued that the underrepresentation of women in his field was not due to any bias in the industry, but to psychological differences between men and women.

He further claims that Google’s diversity initiatives are counter-intuitive and discriminatory in nature, inevitably leading to an increase in race and gender tensions.

“We're told by senior leadership that what we're doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without evidence this is just veiled left ideology,” he said.

Online debates have sprung up surrounding Damore’s viewpoints, with many arguing that his “manifesto” has damaged continued efforts to increase the representation of women in tech. Latest statistics show that, while countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand have a generally equal gender distribution in tech, Cambodia, Laos, and Singapore rank bottom on the list with less than 30% of tech jobs going to women.

But amongst the online right, Damore was hailed as a modern-day Martin Luther, nailing his PC culture commentary on Google’s church doors.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent out a company-wide email in response to the online clamour. The email carried the subject title, “Our words matter”, and stated that Damore had violated the company’s code of conduct.

“To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK,” he wrote.