Over the weekend, Motherboard broke the news of an “internally viral” anti-diversity memo circulating over at Google. Written by a male engineer, the ten-page document is titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” and spells out, in grossly inaccurate details and “facts,” the ways that “discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.” The full text of the document was later published by Gizmodo and is every bit as awful, if not more, than the title might lead you to believe. (Further reporting from Motherboard revealed Wikipedia was used — among other, more reliable sources — in the memo’s citations.) While Google employees knew who wrote the document, the author had, until Monday night, remained mostly anonymous to the general public. Now, Bloomberg is reporting a Google engineer named James Damore is the memo’s author and that he has been fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” (Bloomberg writes that Damore confirmed this via email.)
Earlier on Monday, the company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, sent a memo to staff characterizing Damore’s memo-writing as “advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace,” Recode reports. The internal memo also noted Damore had violated Google’s Code of Conduct. Select All reached out to Google for comment, but the company declined to answer, saying it “can’t comment on individual employee cases.”
