Of course Google did this. Of course an increasingly radical progressive enclave can’t handle thoughtful critiques of its ideological monoculture. Here’s Bloomberg:
Alphabet Inc.’s Google has fired an employee who wrote an internal memo blasting the web company’s diversity policies, creating a firestorm across Silicon Valley.
James Damore, the Google engineer who wrote the note, confirmed his dismissal in an email, saying that he had been fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” A Google representative didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Google forecast the move earlier today when its CEO Sundar Pichai said portions of the memo “violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.” I’m going to write a longer piece about this, but this reaffirms a fundamental reality – key sectors of our economy are not only increasingly politicized, they’re increasingly radicalized.
Eric Schmidt has said that one of Google’s founding values was “freedom of expression.” In reality, you’re only free to toe the party line.
Google is a private company and has wide legal latitude to discipline its employees for their speech, but make no mistake — this is a direct assault on the American culture of free speech. It’s a sad fact that your economic opportunities depend not just on your skills, talents, and the way you treat employees or customers but also on your political opinions. Progressive corporate America is bifurcating economic opportunity, and that’s a very bad thing indeed.