Colleagues –

It has recently come to the management’s attention that last month a male member of Google’s software team launched an unprovoked attack against one of his female co-workers. I won’t repeat the odious specifics because they perpetuated stereotypes about women, but let’s just say that here at Google we do not believe that one sex is “fairer” than the other, and any intimation otherwise won’t be tolerated.

Upon learning of the incident, our team immediately launched an exhaustive investigation into the employee’s actions. What we uncovered was both disconcerting and alarming: a widespread, years-long pattern of intolerable behavior from not …