By Humra Laeeq
A message to the internal Google board by its employees created a string of controversies that raised several political eyebrows. James Damore, who was formerly a Google engineer, was fired in August after he sent a message to one of the largest tech employers in the world. The message was a seething political critique that argues that women do not have equal representation in tech because they are stereotyped as being biologically incapable of engineering. Following that, Damore was fired.
Recurring occurrences
Damore found support with David Gudeman, who was also a Google engineer and was employed for a period of three years. Dissatisfied with the working environment at the company, Gudeman left Google in 2016 and is now self-employed. The duo filed a 161-page lawsuit against the company in Santa Clara Superior Court in Northern California.
The lawsuit’s exact wordings say that it represents all employees of Google who have faced discrimination due to their perceived conservative political views by Google, or their male gender by Google and even due to their Caucasian race by Google. The lawsuit suggests the narrow-minded perception of the company in its understanding of gender, politics and race, all of which are manipulated to suit a political agenda.
Additionally, Google is accused of singling out and punishing employees who expressed views deviating from the majority view at Google on political subjects” and giving termination of employment to the ‘deviants’. Issues like the diversity of employees, hiring policies and bias sensitivity create concerns that Google is willing to comfortably evade under the garb of majority approval.
Insensitivity from Google
Google has been accused of such discrimination in its birthplace, California. Its American origin might explain its racist bias, but issues like gender discrimination and political conservatism are added upon in current times even though they are kind of generic across cultures and societies. With President Trump being openly sexist and racist in several of his remarks, there is a possibility that people evade serious political issues because they feel immune under an already biased administration. As a result, the minority might feel even more excluded than before.
Lesser known issues with Google
Several cases against Google have been registered within this year. In September, three female former Google employees filed a lawsuit saying that it discriminates against women. For their evidence, Google’s male to female employee ratio stands at 7:3, and pays women less than men however senior their position might be and assigns them lower job tiers that do not leave much scope for mobility. Its white employee population is again 56%, a majority that is clear. Against such statistics and political views that percolate from the top to bottom, it is indeed a hard fight to become a ‘deviant’ and express opinions that are diverse.
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