Last week, Google, the global internet giant, terminated an engineer's employment after he wrote a 10-page memo offering an opposing opinion about internal corporate diversity efforts. Titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber," the author offered research and data in an employee-only online forum to pose the thesis that while Google attempts to create equal representation of the sexes in the workplace, discrimination is being used to accomplish that worthy goal.
At the core of this drama lies a diversity problem in the tech industry that, according to The Wall Street Journal, has more white and Asian men employed than women and other minorities. According to the June 2017 Google diversity report, 31 percent of its employees are women, with no change since 2016. The same held true with black workers in the high-tech industry, who stalled at 2 percent for each year. According to Google-logic, those disparities are due to the unconscious bias within everyone oppressing women and non-Asian minorities.
The fired Google employee, James Damore, attempted to explain that some variances contributing to disparities among genders within certain professions might have an explanation outside the various biases assigned by the political Left and Right, which were acknowledged. Having not read the document, most don't know that Damore's "manifesto" actually championed the ideas supporting diversity to include all thoughts and ideas. He, however, was treated as a heretic when he dared to state that ideological diversity was "shunned" in a company that falsely parades around as a leader of tolerance and equality.
The fired software engineer was metaphorically burned at the stake when he dared to reason that an ideological left-leaning bias blinds the Google corporate culture to some reasons that create gender gaps, which, oh, dear, include biological differences that involve the presence of testosterone and male personalities. Damore's citation of non-bias causes of gender disparity and the noted white and Asian privilege were quickly declared "not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages," according to Google's Danielle Brown, vice president for diversity and inclusion.
Damore's memo called for intellectual diversity, yet he was persecuted in the media for his "sexist screed." In an email, he notes he was fired not for his dare to call for more "honest discussion" about finding a need to attract more women and non-Asian minorities into Google but for his "perpetuating gender stereotypes."
Quite pathetically, some women at Google actually proved one of Damore's more controversial points. Last Monday, following the leaking of his writing, many female employees at Google didn't show up for their jobs, claiming they felt "uncomfortable going back to work." Damore's analysis noted that women, while more cooperative, are also driven more by feelings and aesthetics and, again, citing a study across 55 nations, were less attracted to stressful situations. And, they stayed home because they claimed to be uncomfortable with a dissenting view.
Google has been exposed for its politically driven monoculture rooted in political correctness as it shames any dissenters into silence. Be mindful, there's a difference between dissent and insubordination. Damore did not demonstrate the latter, yet he was fired.
So, political Left, which is it? Is NFL football player Colin Kaepernick to be fired for his refusal to stand during the national anthem or applauded for his speech? Are the Christian bakers who own their own business true bigots for standing for the tenets of their Christian faith or just exercising their rights? The standard appears to be that it's diversity when the Left says it's diversity.
Robin Smith, a former chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party, owns Rivers Edge Alliance.