By Kenneth Mansion

Last August James Damore was fired from his post at Google as an internal memo authored by him encouraging internal discussions on political correctness was leaked to the media at large and generated a PR blacklash for his employer Google. Google didn’t take kindly to tarnishing its hard-earned image of a diverse, non-discriminatory workplace as it’s “not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes, or encourages,” according to Danielle Brown, Google’s vice president of diversity, integrity, and governance.

Fast forward to the present, Damore, joined by David Gudeman—another ex-Googler fired under similar circumstances, filed a class-action against their ex-employers due to unlawful termination, discriminatory practice and harassment due to conflicting views. The suit defines three plaintiff classes: Political Class Period for being discriminated against for holding conservative views; Gender Class Period discrimination due to being male; and finally, Race Class Period representing discrimination due to being Caucasian.

The suit alleges Google discriminates in favor of minorities and females by undermining the rest of the racial and gender traits, namely male and Caucasian, for being superior by political or other bias in name of social justice. In addition, Damore and Gudeman’s suit highlighted circumstances where co-workers were encouraged and rewarded for harassing them for airing opinions nonconforming to Google policies or the “Googley way” as it’s supposedly termed internally.

While Damon and Gudeman are portrayed as standing up to systematic left-wing discrimination, their opponents view them as right-wing trolls bent on undermining Google’s benign efforts to create a more inclusive work environment. However, the plaintiff and their supporters consider the notion of rejecting qualified workers to balance the diversity numbers heavy-handed and discriminatory as opposed to the “benign” intentions of the diversity promoters.

Ultimately, with public exposure of the conflict, the court of justice shall decide whether such diversification programs are legal or otherwise. Resolution on moral and ethical debates on the subject is yet to be sighted.