Nautilus

Outraged By the Google Diversity Memo? I Want You to Think About It

Damore was fired, basically, for making a well-meant, if amateurish, attempt at institutional design, based on woefully incomplete information he picked from published research studies. But however imperfect his attempt, he was fired, in short, for thinking on his own. And what example does that set?Photograph by Verco

That leaked internal memo from James Damore at Google? The one that says one shouldn’t expect employees in all professions to reflect the demographics of the whole population? Well, that was a pretty dumb thing to write. But not because it’s wrong. Dumb is that Damore thought he could have a reasoned discussion about this. In the U.S.A., out of all places.

The version of Damore’s memo that first appeared on Gizmodo missed references and images. But meanwhile, the diversity memo has its own website, and it comes with links and graphics.

Damore’s memo strikes me as a pamphlet produced by a well-meaning, but also utterly clueless, young white man. He for this. He deserved maybe a slap on the too-quickly typing fingers. But in his world, asking for discussion is apparently enough to get fired. 

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