Silicon Valley has seen a few foundation-shaking legal cases in the past year—and one of the most significant is the case of James Damore. If you’re not familiar with it, Damore is a former Google engineer who published an internal company memo in which he espoused some controversial views about gender—including his position against gender hiring quotas. As a result of the memo, he was fired from his job, but sued Google for what he alleges to be a bias against Caucasian men and against political conservatives.
Will Silicon Valley Learn the Right Lessons?
Dhillon Law Group represents Damore, and we have already been encouraged to see his case bring about some real change in the tech world. Indeed, many Silicon Valley giants have been forced to rethink the ways in which they treat their employees, or at the very least to acknowledge some troubling patterns within their company cultures.
ONREC notes that Google has faced recent discrimination allegations from people across the ideological spectrum—a good indicator of some rampant abuses in the tech sector. Sadly, Google does not seem to have learned its lesson, at least not fully: According to a Vox.com report, Google had the opportunity to recruit more conservative board members, but shot it down.
Meanwhile, USA Today reports that Google is seeing more and more challenges from its own employees—something that never happened before the Damore case became big news in the Valley.
Google is not the only company that’s under the microscope for its questionable hiring practices; companies like Twitter, Uber, and other tech giants are also facing new scrutiny over their cultures. Still, it’s Google that’s seen the biggest fallout. It’s a fallout that’s ongoing, too, as recent staff walkouts make clear.
Is Google Too Big to Fail?
As the lead attorney representing Damore, Harmeet Dhillon has spoken out about its implications—for Google and for the tech industry at large.
“I don’t think they get it,” she noted in one Fox News appearance. “Google is too big to fail, too powerful to be questioned. They’ve been getting away with this. In fact, in the face of our lawsuit, they simply describe all criticism of their race baiting and racial gerrymandering as an alt right criticism.”
But while Google may set itself up to be unimpeachable, more and more employees have spoken out against the company’s discriminatory practices—with some actually joining the Damore lawsuit. According to The Daily Caller, “Damore’s lawsuit, which includes four other plaintiffs as well as anyone else who may have similarly been affected, is just one of many against Google.” Further information about these additional plaintiffs is available from Breitbart.
A Witch Hunt
One silver lining is that conservative Google employees are rallying together and speaking up for their workplace rights—and indeed, we’re seeing a big upswing in right-wing activism in the tech sector.
According to Dhillon, the anti-conservative practices you find at Google are a pure witch hunt. “The reaction to Damore’s memo was not for its opponents to engage in dialogue or reason with him, but rather to leak his memo, attack him personally, and work to get him threatened and fired—casually, unhesitatingly, maliciously,” she comments.
Thankfully, these attacks are being rebuffed—and Dhillon Law Group will continue to stand proudly alongside Damore and the others who have experienced workplace discrimination at Google or elsewhere in the tech industry.
