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Elaine Ou

Google Can’t Seem to Tolerate Diversity

Silicon Valley won’t solve its gender issues if political correctness shuts down every conversation.
A rare combination.

A rare combination.

Photo: China Photos/Getty Images
Corrected

Over the weekend, a Google engineer named James Damore gained infamy for publishing a 10-page criticism of the company’s “authoritarian” approach to achieving gender diversity. By Monday, he was fired. If the goal was to confirm Damore's thesis, Team Google is doing a great job.

Titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” the memo sets out a well-intentioned goal: Find non-discriminatory ways to reduce gender disparities. At last tally, women occupied only 20 percent of tech jobs at the Alphabet Inc. unit, a dismal number even by Silicon Valley standards.  Damore, who wrote the memo anonymously and later identified himself publicly and confirmed his dismissal, argues that Google’s use of targets (known as “objectives and key results”) can incentivize reverse discrimination, and suggests focusing instead on rewarding what he calls inherently “female” traits -- such as cooperation and the desire for a better work-life balance.