Former Google employee James Damore is suing the company for what he claims to be discrimination against conservative white men, the New York Times reports. Yes, a white male feels like he's being discriminated against. What. A. Time.
Damore, who used to work as an engineer, caught widespread attention after he was fired from Google last August for writing a 10-page manifesto that criticized the company's diversity programs and argued that women don't get as many leadership roles because they are biologically inferior to men. It was posted on an internal Google message board and quickly went viral. Following his termination, Damore and David Gudeman (another former Google employee) filed a class action lawsuit in California's Santa Clara Superior Court stating the company “singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated” employees who disagreed with its view on diversity. The suit also calls upon current and former Google employees who felt they have been discriminated against due to being white, male or having "unpopular political views."
The 161-page suit reads (via Buzzfeed):
"Google employs illegal hiring quotas to fill its desired percentages of women and favored minority candidates, and openly shames managers of business units who fail to meet their quotas—in the process, openly denigrating male and Caucasian employees as less favored than others. Not only was the numerical presence of women celebrated at Google solely due to their gender, but the presence of Caucasians and males was mocked with “boos” during company- wide weekly meetings."
In a news conference with his attorney on Monday, Damore said he felt like he was being brainwashed at Google to accept their views, which were liberal compared to his right-wing mindset. Damore continued: "I would welcome the chance to go back to Google and I do feel like I could improve things there."
“We look forward to defending against Mr. Damore’s lawsuit in court,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
