Fired male Google engineer sues for discrimination, harassment

SAN FRANCISCO — The engineer fired by Alphabet Inc.-owned Google after posting a memo criticizing the company’s diversity policies sued his former employer Monday, alleging it discriminated against him and other white, male conservatives.

James Damore is joined by former Google engineer David Gudeman in the proposed class action. Damore was fired in August after publishing a 10-page memo questioning the company’s diversity and gender inclusion efforts and suggesting women might be biologically less suited than men for engineering and leadership positions.

“Google’s management goes to extreme — and illegal — lengths to encourage hiring managers to take protected categories such as race and/or gender into consideration as determinative hiring factors, to the detriment of Caucasian and male employees and potential employees at Google,” Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Dhillon Law Group wrote in the complaint. Dhillon filed the case in Santa Clara County. Damore et. al v. Google Inc., 18-CV321529 (Santa Clara County Super. Ct., filed Jan. 8).

Gudeman was an engineer at Google for three years and was terminated for suggesting a Muslim colleague might be linked to terrorism. Gudeman and Damore claim they were “ostracized, belittled and punished for their heterodox political views, and for the added sin of their birth circumstances of being Caucasians and males.”

Google responded with a brief statement. “We look forward to defending against Mr. Damore’s lawsuit in court,” a company spokesperson said.

Damore said he was an ideal employee and started to attend diversity seminars, which Google requires for promotion to certain leadership positions in order to show a demonstrated commitment to diversity. The seminar discussed Google’s efforts to increase the number of women at the company by any means possible, including the use of what he said were illegal quotas.

Following his attendance at a seminar, Damore posted his memo — which he said half of its responders agreed with measured by an internal poll — on one of Google’s many employee forums. The human resources department only took an interest in his memo after it was leaked to the media and fellow employees started to harass him, which he said led to his termination.

“There’s kind of a ‘Lord of the Flies’ mentality where a person can be singled out, group shamed, bullied and eventually fired,” Dhillon said. “That’s unacceptable in 2017.”

Google said it fired Damore for advancing harmful gender stereotypes and violating the company’s code of conduct. Damore filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in August.

“This lawsuit is really meant to help everyone — at Google, those affected by Google’s products, and future employees at Google,” Damore said. “I really think that it’s hurting a lot of employees and the company itself by harassing and making people feel alienated. They’re not reaching their full potential.”

The U.S. Department of Labor is investigating claims that the internet giant systematically discriminates against women. While Google maintains it doesn’t have a gender-based pay gap, 80 percent of its technical staff is male and 53 percent are white.

Lori E. Andrus of Andrus Anderson LLP commented that she is skeptical Damore’s suit will prevail and called it a “waste of the court’s time,” arguing that labor laws do not protect employees seeking to advance personal ideologies and political viewpoints in the workplace.

“An employer who hired employees on an at-will basis has a great deal of discretion as to when and why they can fire certain employees,” Andrus said. “Here, they had an obligation to prevent a hostile work environment from impacting the rest of their employees. They didn’t have much of a choice but to shut down his crusade.”