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Google Employee Who Promoted Gender Bias Fired

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Poorvi Gupta
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Google has fired an employee who promoted sexist mindset against female employees through his memo. James Damore accepted his acquittal from the premier company. The engineer is now looking for “possible legal remedies”.

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Damore wrote a memo questioning the company's gender-inclusive policies. It went viral within the company and publicly within a week. Google drew extreme backlash for having an employee with such regressive mindset. This encouraged the company to take the consequential step.

Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, wrote a memo after Damore’s journal. He said Damore's message, “violates our Code of Conduct and crosses the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace”. But he did not mention anything about the company firing the engineer.

ALSO READ: Leadership Over Looks: When Will We Praise Women For Right Things?

Damore’s 10-page memo alleges that the company shuts conservative political opinions. And certain biological differences makes men more suitable in tech and leadership positions.

In a statement, Google’s new vice-president for diversity, integrity and governance, Danielle Brown condemned Damore's misogynist viewpoint. The company's staff supported the decision to fire Damore in an internal meeting. And a major chunk said they won’t be comfortable working with him.

“We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company,” Brown said in the statement, Bloomberg News reported. “We’ll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul.”

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Google struggles with the memo controversy in the middle of fighting a lawsuit from the US Department of Labor. The labor department has accused the company of constantly discriminating against women. Google refutes the charges claiming the company has equal gender pay policy but it has not shared full salary information with the government.

Former employee Yonatan Zunger also wrote a blog post in which he mentioned that he would “not in good conscience” delegate people to work with Damore. “You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment,” he wrote. Several Google employees shared the blog post.

“Could you imagine having to work with someone who had just publicly questioned your basic competency to do your job?” he questioned in an email interaction with Bloomberg News.

Google's Damore joins a pool of sexist employees placed in prestigious companies who propagate regressive mindset against women. Uber founder Travis Kalanick's resignation is a massive example of the same. Kalanick is accused of sexual harassment at Uber and allegedly encouraging a boy’s club culture in the company.

Sundar Pichai Gender bias in Google Gender inclusive policy Google and gender Google employees James Damore's memo
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