[AdhemarVandamme]

You are judging Damore not by his words, but by how his memo got misrepresented. At no point in his memo, Damore indicated that he would discriminate or called for discrimination against other employees. He did advocate to end affirmative action (“Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races”), but that is not the same as advocating for discrimination. It is the opposite, in fact.

In his reply to public response and misrepresentation, Damore did write:

“I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.”

[ryan_lane]

I read the memo, and you're very, very generously cherry-picking from it. The funny thing is, even with your generous cherry-picking, you're pointing out something that is directly a white supremacist talking point. He seems to be very concerned around population representation, but doesn't seem to take into consideration the differences in the population based on location, which heavily skews things.

Defending him, and his racist, sexist memo, sends a clear signal: you're like him.

[Delk]

Which part of the memo or AdhemarVandamme's interpretation of it makes you think it's proportional to accuse both of them of racism, to the point of invoking white supremacists? (You aren't directly accusing AdhemarVandamme of supporting white supremacists, of course, but you are kind of implying towards that, as I'm sure you're aware.)

Of course white supremacists will oppose affirmative action -- they'll probably support just plain old discrimination instead, as they wouldn't really be supremacists otherwise.

Does that mean it's justified to imply a parallel with white supremacists just because someone doesn't support affirmative action or thinks other approaches would be better? Or maybe just thinks you should be able to express that kind of a view without being being literally accused of racism and discrimination?

You can disagree with the Damore memo and oppose its views. You can interpret its views of (statistical, not individual) gender differences as sexist, although that could probably be debated. Nobody should be discriminated against due to their skin colour. I can understand and support special efforts to support disadvantaged groups.

But I am also of the opinion that you really shouldn't be able to make accusations of racism, let alone of aligning with white supremacists, without actual good reason.

Just defending someone else or their interpretation shouldn't really be grounds for that. Neither should supporting or not supporting a particular interpretation of someone else's writing.

People can defend others whether they fully agree with the other person or not. People should be able to defend others if the judgement they get seems disproportionate or interpretations unfair. That should be entirely possible to do without being vilified.

I mean, sure, if someone clearly defends neo-nazis, maybe there's no need to pull any punches, but I trust we aren't going to be strawmanning here.

Vilifying someone for defending someone else regardless of proportionality is uncharitable at best.