[shadowgovt]

The simple explanation is not always correct.

Damore doubled down on defending the document and asserted his right to publish it. At that point, he made himself a walking Title VII violation and tied Google's hands. Whether management wanted to fire him or not, the legal cost of retaining him was going to exceed his value as an individual contributor.

As far as I can see, Bobb is doing everything he can to work with Google to avoid the further creation of a hostile work environment. It might not be enough, but for now it seems to be worth more to the company to keep him than to fire him.

There may be one aspect, however, where your observation about relative American tolerances for hostile-environment-creating speech matters. Hostile work environment is partially decided by fellow employee's reaction to behavior. If the average Googler is, in fact, less tolerant of biological essentialism than antisemitism, that could create a corporation where one speech is punished more hardly than the other. But I think we ought not to discount the reaction of the separate actors in these two stories once caught in the spotlight.