[notconservative]

> “Much of" Damore’s memo was probably protected under the law. ... But ... Google discharged Damore only for his "discriminatory statements," which aren’t shielded by labor law.

Given how significantly many people have misunderstood Damore's claims, this seems to open up a hole for companies to mischaracterize someone as a racist/sexist/etc and then fire them over it.

[Aunche]

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.

People really did exaggerate how bad the memo really was. That said, it definitely has portions that brought up stereotypes without citing direct evidence, like how men have a higher drive to achieve status. Google considered these statements "discriminatory," which sounded reasonable enough to the NLRB. It doesn't matter whether these statements were actually discriminatory because they clearly fall outside the bounds of protected speech.

[manfredo]

He cited multiple academic sources to back up the claims made about gender. He also belabored the point that averages and general trends of a demographic should not be used to make judgements about individual members of the demographic.

[s73v3r_]

Not all of them. He also misinterpreted several, and stretched the conclusions beyond what was reasonable.

[zimablue]

Good of you to point then out for us then, thanks.

[oh_sigh]

This is exactly what happens in academia all of the time, when you have factions who believe in competing ideas. Side A thinks that logic and rationality and the data is on their side, and that side B stretches the facts and don't have support for their claims, and vice versa for side B.

Are all of these issues in academia settled which you refer to? Or is it that, maybe, Damore accepted side Bs views, whereas you accept side As views, but this isn't settle in academia?

Could you point out, perhaps, the most offensive, non-supported statement that Damore had in his memo?

[bduerst]

There's a good breakdown here, that was eventually run in Forbes:

https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...

[throwaway324823]

Is it a good breakdown? The author seems awfully bought into the narrative of power structures being the dominant reason for sex differences, and is obviously extremely angry. Hardly an unbiased observer.

[leereeves]

He did cite evidence for his claims, but the most widely circulated copies of the memo removed his citations.

[Aunche]

I mean the citations weren't particularly thorough, and he took some liberties with interpretation.

[bduerst]

Not to mention cherry picking what to cite in order to support his arguments.

[leereeves]

I agree Damore's sources were unconvincing, but I've searched for sources disputing one of his most controversial claims (that women are more "neurotic" - an unfortunately named Big Five personality trait - than men) and haven't found any.

Do you know of any?

[bduerst]

The Big Five is getting outdated. It was a popular method in the 90's, but doesn't hold up today for biological factor analysis because its lexical nature opens it to social biases:

>And that is what the Big Five represents: a consistent model of how humans reflect individuality using language, no more. There were no considerations of findings in neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, experimental psychology, observations of behavior of people or animals in real situations – none of this was used at the research stage leading to the development of the Big Five. In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/

The big five can still be used for self-reported correlational analysis, but Damore used it in an argument against social constructs, when the method itself can be heavily biased by the social constructs he's arguing against.

[Consultant32452]

His statements were within the mainstream interpretations of modern clinical psychology and evolutionary biology. That doesn't make them certain facts by any means, but it's important that we not misrepresent things here.

[awesomepantsm]

Are you implying the lawyers in the case didn't read the citations? Please.

[leereeves]

No, I'm responding to the claim in the comment above that Damore made statements "without citing direct evidence".

Though it is probably true that the lawyers in the case didn't read the citations. It wasn't their job to determine whether Damore's statements were scientifically accurate, and they stated that his statements were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, regardless of the scientific references and analysis.

[dragonwriter]

> Given how significantly many people have misunderstood Damore's claims, this seems to open up a hole for companies to mischaracterize someone as a racist/sexist/etc and then fire them over it.

No, it doesn't.

Because the interpretation of the firing company doesn't determine the legality. Whether, on the evidence, a firing is solely due to actually legally unprotected statements (not statements that the employer chooses to misconstrue as unprotected) is.

[izacus]

Isn't employment in places where these companies operate at-will? Meaning they can fire you because you waved your hair funny in the morning?

[BookmarkSaver]

Yes, but (IANAL) if the employee suspects that there was an illegal reason behind it, they can probably sue and subpoena documents revealing management motivations.

Like, sure, a manager could wake up and just fire you because they were grumpy. But if it is discovered that there was internal communications about their political opinions leading up to it, then there would be a case.

[jxdxbx]

You can be fired for your political opinions.

[JonnyNova]

There are certain legal limitations to that from the NLRA. tptacek goes into that in depth here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16396827

[dragonwriter]

Yes, but there are still prohibited reasons for firing. Which labor organizing is one of; Damore charged that he was fired for organizing, the NLRB found that Google fired him for actions that fall outside of protected labor organizing.

[notconservative]

Yes, but not if you're trying to organize to improve working conditions, because this is protected by the NRLA.

If the NRLA believes only parts of Damore's memo were working towards improving working conditions and other parts were working to discriminate against women, which part is which.

To someone that agrees with Damore, it looks like everyone mischaracterized his effort to improve working conditions as sexism. Then Google was able to use that as cover to fire him for protected organizing.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

In an at-will state, I can fire you because I don't like how you did your hair, but I can't fire you because you belong to a protected class.

[andrewprock]

Allow me to suggest that both Google and the NLRB understood Damore's claim, and that any misunderstanding falls on the side of those who disagree with what they found.

[notconservative]

That's possible of course.

But, I haven't read exactly what the NRLA found to be discriminatory. This would help anyone that is legitimately trying to improve working conditions and trying not to promote discrimination.