It Seems We Are Not Allowed A "wrong" Opinion!

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40859004

[Hymie]

If you believe that corporations have a social responsibility to pay their fair share of tax – it’s probably a sackable offence if you work for Google.

[ToraToraTora]

what has tax got to do with this?

[Hymie]

Wrong opinion

[Gromit]

The opinion is neither right nor wrong.

Google is not a forum, it is a very valuable private company. As such it has a Code of Conduct which everyone who works for it are expected to adhere to.
One employee riled against the CofC and is now free of it, and able to persue a career elsewhere. Everone's a winner.

[Hymie]

Google's thought police are quick today.

[jim360]

It's getting to the point where you can't demean and insult half the population, and annoy most of the other half, without being considered to bring a major company into disrepute any more.

[woofgang]

I know Jim....disgusting isn’t it? :)

[naomi24]

Jim, As a member of one half of the population I don't feel demeaned or insulted. I think there's something in what he said.

[jim360]

You think that there's a biological reason that women aren't engineers?

[naomi24]

I think men and women are 'wired' differently.

[jno]

he wasn't fired for having an opinion, but for breaching the company's code of conduct. Quite a lot of companies have them.

The CEO said "To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK."

Many CEOs would say exactly the same. But Mr Damore is still free to hold the opinion, and has now been liberated to put it forward whenever and wherever he likes.

[anotheoldgit]

It would seem that rather than being the wrong opinion, it was definitely the right opinion.

[jim360]

I don't think that really answers the question. That women's and men's brains show, on average, some differences isn't really in dispute. That those differences are sufficient to explain why women less frequently end up in STEM subjects is very much in dispute. Because, you know, in between birth and career choice there's a lifetime of societal factors that will also play a part.

Incidentally, that's not to say that the idea of "disparities in recruitment doesn't imply the company is sexist" is bogus -- but the employee seems to have missed everything in between.

However, the opinion itself is neither here nor there. He has a right to express it. Google has a right to say that such opinions aren't welcome in their workforce, since they would, I am sure, far rather not have to deal with the negative publicity that effectively sanctioning the idea that "women just aren't cut out to be engineers" would bring.

[Khandro]

Donald Trump employed a woman architect to oversee the building of Trump Tower;
'Barbara Res, who had worked on some of Trump's other projects and then worked as a consultant for Trump until 1996, was the construction executive. At the time, Res was the first woman who had been assigned to oversee a major New York City construction site.'

Wikipedia

So much for women and technology and also for The Donald's so-called misogyny!!

[Hymie]

If I worked for Google and was of the opinion that corporations should pay their fair share of tax – I would expect to be sacked.

I might also expect Answerbank’s thought police to delete such a thought/expectation.

[youngmafbog]

Part of the problem is that diversity is used by some Companies, particularly yank ones, for political reasons and so called positive discrimination. Google is a well known left wing "Silicon Valley" company so it is of no surprise to see them silence opposition to their 'views'.

Remember this is a company that seems to believe it is OK to 'promote' Gang culture on its pages, even allowing them (the gangs) to earn advertisement money from them.

Google lost its way some time ago. I was a very early user of them but not now.

[jim360]

Ah, Khandro, the old "some of my best friends are black" defence...

[naomi24]

Jim, // That women's and men's brains show, on average, some differences isn't really in dispute.//

Google seems to think it is.

[jim360]

No, Google seems to think that its public image would suffer as a result of the (mostly negative) publicity that the opinion has generated.

[naomi24]

I know. I was addressing the content of the email.