Googlers Aired Googles Dirty Laundry, James Damore. Now They Say They’re Facing Punishment.

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When I first shared the story about James Damore’s lawsuit against Google, I took great care to hide many of the names on the posts that Damore shared in his suit. Damore’s goal was likely to get these people targeted for harassment online, as he censored the names of conservative and alt-right names in the screenshots, but not those belonging to liberals. However, I saw a few names repeat throughout the document. One of those people has come forward, Tim Chevalier. Tim was also fired from Google, and he says it’s because he spoke out against James Damore. Is Google retaliating against employees who brought news of James Damore’s sexism and the company’s own rampant sexism and harassment to the world?

Who’s Suing Google?

Tim Chevalier

Tim has publicly identified himself as queer, transgender, and disabled. He was one of many people offended by James Damore’s memo, and noticed Google’s inaction until the memo was made public. As you might imagine, internal message boards at Google were aflame with those siding with James Damore’s screed, or at least saying he shouldn’t be fired for his sexist, racists beliefs, and those who were obviously happy Google finally got rid of him. Tim took part in those discussions, explaining to Googlers who supported Damore why they were both wrong and displaying racism and sexism by implying that Google had to “lower the bar” to hire minorities and women. Tim became a keyboard warrior at Google against discrimination, something the company itself should have been doing.

Gina Scigliano, Google spokesperson, stated that Tim Chevalier was fired not due to retaliation for bringing the Damore memo to light, nor was he fired for speaking out against sexism, racism, and anti-LGBTQ bias at Google. Instead, she says he was fired for communicating in a way that was not “consistent with our policies.” She stated that “We always make our decision without any regard to the employee’s political views.” But is that inherently siding with James Damore, who has framed his sexism and racism as his personal “political views?”

It seems clear that Chevalier became frustrated with Google’s lack of action against the racist, sexist, and anti-LGBTQ comments he saw from his fellow Googlers, and spoke out about it in anger. He accused the “white boys” of Google of expecting privilege and feeling threatened when they don’t have an advantage over others. The idea is common: when you have privilege and power, equality can seem like oppression. Google says they fired Tim for making an uncomfortable work environment, but Tim believes that Google’s policies should protect marginalized groups, not those making Google unwelcome for women and minorities. If Google’s not doing enough to combat xenophobic hate speech at their company, should frustrated employees who step up and tackle it with perhaps too much fervor take the blame?

Loretta Lee

Loretta Lee was fired by Google in 2016 for poor performance. She states that her poor performance wasn’t actually due to her not working enough or her code being sub-par, but rather that she faced retaliation for speaking out against sexual harassment she faced in the office. To really help you understand how much power her coworkers had over her performance, you need to know a little about code reviews and source control management.

Think of code like a long paper you might write for a class. Let’s say you have a 20 page paper being worked on by a team of 5 people. The “master” version of the paper will sit online, and each team member will take a snapshot of it, change something, and send it out to their peers for review. If they like the changes, those changes are merged into the master version. This reduces conflicts (two people both working on page 17 of the paper, for example), and helps improve quality, by ensuring everyone has an editor.

Loretta’s supposedly poor performance, she says, only came about after she spoke out against the sexual harassment she faced at Google. People stopped reviewing her code, or started nitpicking it, claiming it was never good enough to be merged. As a result, it seemed as though Loretta’s performance was awful, but really, she claims, her male coworkers were sabotaging her in retaliation.

Lee claims she faced severe harassment at Google. She says she was pestered daily with Nerf darts (the office equivalent of flirtation through pulling a girl’s pigtails, I suppose). That alone would be annoying, especially if it was targeted, but it was the least of her complaints. She had her drinks spiked with liquor, was texted asking for a “horizontal hug,” had a male employee show up to her apartment with liquor and refuse to leave, had her breasts groped, was slapped by a male employee, and once found a man hiding under her desk, possibly trying to install a webcam to view up her skirt.

Loretta’s superior found out about the harassment, and pushed her to report it. However, she didn’t want to. Lee knew she would likely face retaliation if she spoke out about this constant sexual harassment. She, like many women, stayed quiet. However, one of her harassers, perhaps spurred by her refusals to accept their invitations, had her written up for being uncooperative. For Loretta Lee, that was the last straw. She finally came forward with her harassment complaints, but Google ignored her.

Class Action Suit and U.S. Department of Labor

A class action lawsuit was thrown out late last year for being too vague. It claimed Google had discriminated against all female employees, but a judge said it needed to be more specific. The lawsuit is being filed once again with more specific plaintiffs, the women whose careers were derailed by Google’s apparent sexism.

The U.S. Department of Labor has also been in a legal battle with Google. As Google is a federal contractor, the U.S. government has to do routine checks to ensure that Google is not engaging in discrimination. During their last check, they found women were being drastically underpaid at Google. The Department of Labor is currently trying to get their hands on historical data to prove that women are not given the same raises, bonuses, and advancement opportunities as men at Google. However, they think they already have good reason for concern.

James Damore and David Gudeman

Damore and Gudeman’s lawsuit has already been discussed at length. Gudeman was fired for saying that a Muslim coworker was right to be harassed by airport security because he could have been a terrorist. Damore was fired for his memo that claimed women were less likely to want to be in tech not because of society pushing women out of tech, conditioning young girls to be agreeable, sexism, or bias in hiring practices, but because they were biologically inferior for the tasks. The United States government has already ruled against Damore, stating that his remarks were sexist and Google had every right to fire him. Damore used debunked papers and didn’t accurately frame both sides of the debate, siding with men’s rights activists and refusing to look at the entire picture. He seems like a man who was unwittingly dragged into something bigger than himself, and only realizes now what he did was wrong. Still, despite this, his lawsuit with Islamophobe David Gudeman against Google is ongoing.

Google’s Standing

Right now, the U.S. government is investigating Google for pay discrimination and three former Googlers are suing the company. One says Google fired him for his “conservative” ideals, one claims he was fired in retaliation for speaking out against discrimination, and the final one for sexual harassment and—again—retaliation. I’ll tell you this much, as a software engineer and a woman, it would take a hell of a lot more than nap pods, catered meals, and a big fat paycheck to get me to ever work for Google. It seems the Mountain View company has an internal vile culture they don’t want the world to know about, and only takes action against culprits when their crimes are brought to the attention of the public, while punishing those who spoke out. Google’s culture is clearly toxic, but is it a reflection of Silicon Valley at large, or worse?

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Sources:

• Ethan Baron, Mercury News
• Department of Labor
• Paul Lewis, The Guardian
• Natasha Tiku, Wired
• Daniel Wiessner, Reuters
• Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian