Yesterday, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) released a memo written by an attorney, Jayme Sophir, which determined that Google did not violate United States federal law when it fired James Damore. Sophir reasoned that references to psychometric literature on sex differences in personality were "discriminatory and constitute sexual harassment," and on these grounds, Damore's firing was justified. Following the release of the NLRB memo, a number of scientists on Twitter expressed alarm at the justifications provided within the memo, which appeared to relegate the discussion of sex differences outside the realm of constitutionally protected speech.
The NLRB's determination has emerged after Damore, together with another former Google engineer,
filed a class action lawsuit against the company alleging an institutionalised culture of harassment towards people with conservative or libertarian political views. Their complaint is eye-opening. Damore and Gudeman lay out in detail the many ways in which this harassment occurs: a pervasive environment of
disparaging jokes and demeaning language amongst colleagues; a climate of
bullying, mocking, and personal attacks from superiors and others in power; an
open endorsement by superiors of bullying (referred to internally as
social pecking); an unwillingness by superiors and administrators to act upon threats of violence; the use of
incentive programmes to promote and celebrate harassment; a set of
training programmes that foment hostility through emotionalised and unnuanced company-endorsed lectures; and a number of other mechanisms that disincentivise or punish political expression, which in Damore and Gudeman's case eventually led to their dismissals.
Comment: The destructive nature of mass migration is now finally being comprehended by a number of countries in Europe. If they can only put two and two together and realize that the wars they tacitly or overtly support in the Middle East and elsewhere lead to such domestic disasters, then we finally might be getting somewhere. But don't count on that happening any time soon.