In August, engineer James Damore was fired from Google after writing a viral memo suggesting that women are biologically ill-suited to working in tech. And on Monday, Damore filed a lawsuit against the tech giant, alleging it discriminates against politically conservative white males, BuzzFeed News reports.
Damore was terminated from Google after his ten-page manifesto circulated this summer — in which he argued the gender pay gap in tech was a result of women’s genetic inferiority. Damore subsequently doubled-down on that idea in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, claiming he was fired because his “moral preferences and beliefs” were too out there for the leftist “mob” his bosses catered to. He also later said he believed women should feel “empowered” by his musings.
In his lawsuit, Damore claims Google “singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated” employees who didn’t share the company’s views on diversity. He and a second plaintiff — former Google engineer David Gudeman — are seeking class certification on behalf of conservative Caucasian men. Per BuzzFeed News:
“Google’s management goes to extreme — and illegal — lengths to encourage hiring managers to take protected categories such as race and/or gender into consideration as determinative hiring factors, to the detriment of Caucasian and male employees and potential employees at Google,” the suit reads.
Google had already been served with a different gender-discrimination suit earlier this month; a group of women alleged in a revised lawsuit that the company asked for their salary histories and paid them less than their male counterparts. BuzzFeed News notes that Damore’s suit had been expected after he publicly hired attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon — the Republican National Committee’s Committeewoman for California — back in August.
