Part 3: Google's Active Promotion of a Culture of Bias

“Google employees have witnessed multiple instances in which hundreds of “progressive” Googlers would target a single co-worker for harassment, and even potential violence, over a politicized matter, humiliating the person and sabotaging his career.” –Damore v Google Class Action Lawsuit.

The stories and complaints made in the last half of the lawsuit come from sources who wished to remain anonymous. Normally I would have an issue with anonymous sources, but they provide external evidence such as screen shots of conversations to back up their claims.

Google Punishes Other Employees

After experiencing harassment and discrimination due to being conservative, male, and Caucasian and providing evidence to Google HR, Google HR made excuses for the Progressive activists.

The waving away of this misconduct ensured that nothing was done about the problem. In August 2015 a Google employee raised this issue of race and gender discrimination/harassment with Urs Hölzle, a Senior Vice President.

This resulted in a targeted campaign of harassment and threats of blacklisting directed at the Google employee, which management did nothing to stop. Instead several members of management made statements that had the effect of encouraging an “unambiguous social pecking” of political dissidents.

On August 14^th 2015 several Google employees raised the same issues of gender and racial discrimination with two other Senior Vice Presidents in an email entitled “Concerns regarding intimidation and blacklisting.”

On August 19^th 2015 in retaliation for the Google employee’s ongoing attempts to end political discrimination at work, his HR Manager and Director issued a Final Written Warning letter. At no point did Google retract or repudiate the threats and attacks aimed at the Google employee.

Examples of the comments that elicited punishment included the following:

These statements are in no way disorderly, disruptive, derogatory name-calling, abusive or profane, intimidating or coercive. Instead they stand in stark contrast to hostile postings aimed at conservative, male, and/or Caucasian Google employees.

The Final Written Warning issued even repudiated Google’s policy: “We strive to maintain the open culture often associated with startups, in which everyone is a hands-on contributor and feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions.”

Ironically, the Google employee had provided ample evidence that Caucasian males who challenged certain assumptions behind the so-called “social justice” agenda were routinely and unfairly branded as “racists,” “sexists,” or “bigots,” and targeted for severe written abuse and career sabotage.

The next step after a Final Written Warning is termination.

Google Allows Workplace Harassment of Trump Supporters

In October 2016, a Site Reliability Manager, became aware that a Google employee was a supporter of President Trump and held socially conservative views. These two individuals did not work together, but had become acquainted through the company’s social mailing lists.

In March 2017 the manager scheduled a meeting with the Google employee’s manager in an attempt to sabotage the employee’s annual performance review.

The manager falsely accused the employee of participating in an illegal “doxing” campaign and also suggested that the employee was involved in illegal workplace discrimination. Both were absolutely unsupported.

In a later meeting with his manager the Google employee faced allegations of doxing which the manager said was concerning. The employee provided evidence that the claims were false and concocted, but his name and reputation were already besmirched.

Further compounding the issue in March 2017 the manager, posted on a political mailing list visible to all 80,000 employees to brag about his meeting with the Google employee’s manager for the purposes of harassing and undermining him.

In this conversation the manager made additional politically motivated threats toward members of the “conservatives@” mailing list community at Google. The manager threatened to call Employee Relations to comb through the mailing list archives to nitpick old posting for Code of Conduct violations.

Employee Relations at Google does not mediate disputes or offer advice. Instead they are tasked with investigating employees for policy violations and building a case for discipline.

The manager also threatened to apply Google’s politically intolerant and legally questionable employee handbook speech code to communications taking place between friends off the clock on non-work forums.

The manager’s threats were reported to Google HR, who replied that the manager had “crossed the line.” However, Google never made the manager retract his threats or apologize for his sabotage attempts.

The same manager in August of 2017 directed threats of litigation and termination against unnamed employees who spoke to outside bloggers in support of Damore and his memo. Google, once again, did nothing to stop this.

Conservative Parenting Styles Not Welcome

Google furnishes a large number of internal mailing lists catering to employees with alternative lifestyles, including but not limited to furries, polygamy, transgenderism, and plurality (see photo for plurality).

The only lifestyle that was not openly discussed on internal forums was traditional heterosexual monogamy. In March 2017, Google HR strongly suggested to a Google employee that conservative and traditional parenting techniques were unwelcome at Google.

Google HR was responding to a post that was made replying to a request for conservative parenting advice. The post stated “If I had a child, I would teach him/her traditional gender roles and patriarchy from a very young age. That’s the hardest thing to fix later, and our degenerate society constantly pushes the wrong message.”

Google HR response “We did not find that this post, on its face, violated any of Google’s policies, but your choice of words could suggest that you were advocating for a system in which men work outside the home and women do not, or that you were advocating for rigid adherence to gender identity at birth. We trust that neither is what you intended to say. We are providing you with this feedback so that you can better understand how some Googlers interpreted your statements, and so that you are better equipped to ensure that Google is a place in which all Googlers are able to reach their full potential.”

Google Support for Antifa

In May 2017 one Google employee discovered and reported several offensive postings attacking Trump supporters and Caucasian males to Google HR.

Google HR responded in June 2017 by stating “Thanks for your time the other day and sharing your response. We have reviewed the threads that you sent us and do not find them to be attacking traditionally conservative views, but more extreme, “alt-right” views that seem to teeter into discrimination and possibly incite violence against certain groups of people.”

Google has never made any such comments regarding posts supporting violent vigilante organization, Antifa, or other extreme leftist/anarchist organizations. A large number of Googlers have set their corporate profile pictures to Antifa insignias.

 

Blacklisting

In August 2015 Adam Fletcher, a L6 SRE Manager, Jake McGuire a L7 SRE Manager, and Nori Heikkinen, a L6 SRE Manager all publicly endorsed blacklisting conservatives as well as actively preventing them from seeking employment opportunities at Google.

Fletcher even categorized conservatives as “hostile voices” and states that “I will never, ever hire/transfer you onto my team. Ever. I don’t care if you are perfect fit or technically excellent or whatever. I will actively not work with you, even to the point where your team or product is impacted by this decision. I’ll communicate why to your manager if it comes up.”

Read the conversation for yourself.

 

Google’s management-sanctioned blacklists were directed at specific Google employees who tactfully expressed conservative viewpoints. In one case, Jay Gengelbach, a L6 SWE Manager, publicly bragged about blacklisting an intern for failing to change his conservative views. He was supported in his choice by other employees.

 

Kim Burchett, a L7 SWE Manager, proposed creating an online companywide blacklist of political conservatives inside Google.

 

On August 7, 2015 another manager, Collin Winter stated “I keep a written blacklist of people whom I will never allow on or near my team, based on how they view and treat their coworkers. That blacklist got a little longer today.”

He was referring to a Google employee who raised concerns of harassment and discrimination to Urs Hölzle. Paul Cowan, another manager, reshared Winter’s threat to express his agreement with it and indicated that he also participated in blacklisting conservatives.

Cowan stated: “If you express a dunderheaded opinion about religion, about politics, or about ‘social justice’, it turns out I am allowed to think you’re a halfwit… I’m perfectly within my rights to mentally categorize you in my dickhead box… Yes, I maintain (mentally, and not (yet) publicly) [a blacklist]. If I had to work with people on this list, I would refuse, and try to get them removed; or I would change teams; or I would quit.”

On August 14 2015 a small group of employees complained to Senior Vice President of Google HR, Laszlo Bock and Senior Vice President of Legal David Drummond that and alarming number of individuals were calling for generic firings “if they express[ed] certain opinions on sociopolitical subjects.”

Google took little or no action regarding this complaint, made clear by the fact that the blacklisting posts remain live on Google’s internal corporate network. Google ignored most cases, and occasionally “coached” the worst offenders.

The primary purpose of these blacklists and suggested blacklists was to encourage and coordinate the sabotage of promotions, performance reviews, and employment opportunities for those with conservative viewpoint.

Google Supports Blacklists

At a TGIF all-hands meeting on October 26, 2017 an employee directly asked executives about the appropriateness of keeping political blacklists. Kent Walker, the Senior Vice President of Legal, dodged the question rather than repudiating the practice of blacklisting.

On September 8^th 2017 a group of conservative employees met with Paul Manwell, Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Chief of Staff, concerning the ongoing problems of politically motivated blacklists, bullying and discrimination at Google. This meeting was in direct response to the company’s handling of the Damore situation.

The employees shared their own experience with discrimination and asked management for three major reforms.

First, clarity around communication policies, recommending that Google publish a clearer statement on what is acceptable and unacceptable employee communication, and that any and all complaints about communication be adjudicated through “a documented, fair, transparent, and appealable process.”

Second, protection from retaliation, asking leadership to make a public statement that conservatives and supporters of Damore would not be punished in any way for their political stances.

Third, that the company make it clear that the hostile language and veiled threats directed at Damore and his supporters were unacceptable, and in the interest of making Google a healthier environment for employees of all political stripes, the managers and VPs who made such statements should retract them.

None of these reforms ever took place.

In October 2017, diversity activists at Google indicated they had met with VPs Danielle Brown and Eileen Naughton in order to ensure that they would be able to continue blacklisting and targeting employees with whom they had political disagreements.

On October 22^nd, 2017 a conservative employee asked HR to put him in contact with leadership to discuss targeted political harassment. Employee Relations acknowledged this request on October 31 2017. On December 22 2017 Employee Relations indicated that they would not be following up on his concerns and considered the matter closed.

Google Blacklists Conservative Authors

On August 20 2016, Curtis Yarvin, a well-known conservative blogger who has reportedly advised Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, and other members of the Trump administration, visited the Google office to have lunch with an employee.

Yarvin’s presence tripped a silent alarm, which alerted security personnel to escort him off the premises. It was later discovered that other conservative personalities, including Alex Jones and Theodore Beale, are on the same blacklist.

When asked by an employee if it was possible to removed writers from the blacklist Google HR refused to help and instead reconfigured the internal system so that it was no longer possible to see who was on the blacklist.

Intimidation of Conservatives with Threats of Termination

One Google employee, referring to two conservative Googlers, stated “maybe we should just try laying of those people. Please.”

Many Google employees resorted to name-calling, and one called conservative Google employees that reported discrimination to Google HR “poisonous assholes.” They also stated that they knew who the “assholes” were and that they could be easily replaced.

 

Several conservative employees reported this to Google HR, but Google HR replied that this was not a policy violation.

Discrimination against Caucasian Males

On April 4^th 2015 a Caucasian male posted a comment about a “Diversity Town Hall” meeting in which the management stated that affirmative action was impractical from a legal standpoint.

Liz Fong-Jones, an L5 SRE Manager, responded that she “could care less about being unfair to white men. You already have all the advantages in the world.”

 

Dozens of other employees joined in to insult and belittle the Caucasian male. They received hundreds of “upvotes” from other Googlers showing their approval.

 

The Caucasian male employee’s own manager replied to chastise him and to promise he would be punished for his apostasy.

 

Fong-Jones doubled-down in a follow up conversation stating that the “benefit to everyone as a whole” justifies discrimination against white men.

 

When Fong-Jones was reported to Google HR, HR responded that Fong-Jones was responding “to some pretty insensitive comments from other colleagues and reacting to an environment that we know have been less than friendly to women and minorities at times.”

They also claimed that her behavior was taken out of context and excused her comments. It was only after matters escalated that Google HR took “action” which, they claim, ranged from “coaching to warnings.”

Chris Busselle, a manager in the Search organization, urged other Googlers to engage in discriminatory practices. In an April 9^th 2017 message Busselle suggested that employees should leverage Google’s influence to have “cheesy white males” removed from speaker lineups at conferences.

When the G+ post above was reported to Google HR they replied “Regarding your concern about Chris Busselle’s G+ post, we have reviewed and do not find that it violates our policies. You may of course feel free to provide him feedback about his post.”

Google Does Not Understand Logical Arguments

A perfect example of Google’s relaxed attitude toward discrimination against Caucasians and Males is seen in Burchett’s G+ posts, as seen below.

 

According to the lawsuit, Burchett continued to make hiring and promoting decisions at Google and was not reprimanded by Google, even though Burchett’s posts were reported to Google HR and to the Senior Vice President of Legal in a formal complaint.

In another example a Google employee reported an offensive post from an employee in the Developer Product Group. The post stated “If you put a group of 40-something white men in a room together and tell them to come up with something creative or innovative, they’ll come back and tell you how enjoyable the process was, and how they want to do it again, but they come up with fuck-all as a result!”

When a Google employee presented this to Google HR stating it was in violation of the Google Code of Conduct and was creating a hostile workplace that targeted Caucasians, men and individuals over the age of 40.

Google HR responded “Given the context of the post and that [the employee’s] main point is to highlight that it is helpful to have diverse perspectives, it doesn’t appear that the post to [sic] violates our policies.”

The employee responded to Google HR by replacing the term “40-something white men” with “women” and asked how that was not a breach of conduct. Google failed to respond.

Google’s “Diversity” Policies

Charles Mendis, an Engineering Director, informed his team that he was “freezing [headcount]” to reserve future open positions for diverse candidates. Mendis stated, “For each position we have open work on getting multiple candidates including a diversity candidate.” He continued “Often the first qualified candidate is not a diversity candidate, waiting to have a few qualified candidates and being patient is important.”

This discrimination against Caucasians and males was not only allowed at Google but supported and actively encouraged. The lawsuit relates the story of a Google employee who had worked at the company for nearly a decade without incident.

As soon as Googlers learned he supported conservative ideologies, he lost his transfer to a different team (that was almost assured before), received a poor performance rating (his second ever, the first due to bereavement leave) and was placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

These are only a handful of the examples of illegal and discriminatory conduct at Google. Other employees may be able to point to innumerable other examples and a compilation of posts and memes from Google’s internal message boards have been included with the lawsuit as Exhibit B.

These claims made in this lawsuit appear to be clear evidence of discrimination against Caucasians, Men, and Conservatives. Yet that is for a court to decided and in the coming weeks we shall see how this lawsuit unfolds.

This is part three of a three part series outlining the lawsuit brought against Google by James Damore. I have provided links to part one and part two if you want the full story.

Part one: Behind the Scenes of Google's Monstrous Culture of Bias
Part two: Google's Culture of Bias REVEALED

I have included a few examples from Exhibit B below: