Class 6: Research Ethics, responding to Google's Ideological echo chamber.
- Tom Hogan
- Dec 3, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 15, 2019
Today's post will draw upon the case study of Former Senior Engineer at Google, James Damore and his controversial 'anti-diversity' memo. To make a long story short, Damore created an internal memo which among other things was critical of having to undertake mandatory diversity training at Google. This resulted eventually in Damore's employment being terminated at Google.
To further my understanding of this case before expressing an opinion on it I decided to read the full memo (Gizmodo 2017) and it's response from the Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance at Google. Because you should always look before you leap, especially when it comes to conclusions.
The full document sheds a different light on a story which can be judged very quickly on face value. Damore summarises his main points as such,
Google's political bias has equated the freedom from offence with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.
This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed.
The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology.
Extreme: all disparities in representation are due to oppression
Authoritarian: we should discriminate to correct for this oppression
Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.
Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.
What I found interesting firstly was that he clarifies that he is writing in response to receiving opinion from fellow 'googlers' on the topic and wanted to open the topic up for an 'honest discussion'. The language throughout the memo is far from what you would call overly emotional or aggressive and seems quite frank and honest. It would make sense that as a senior engineer and leader within his workplace, the responsibility would be his to raise the concerns of his workers who come to him.
We can see the utalitarian approach (Ethics Unwrapped, 2019) at play within this situation. Although Damore may have been unaware of how severe the consequences would prove to be, by becoming the representative of the groups sentiment and later scapegoat, he put the needs of the majority before his own in the hope of opening a dialouge on an issue that they felt was important.
Which is why it seems like such a drastic kneejerk reaction for Google to fire Damore for what could've been the opportunity for management and employees to air their feelings with regard to internal policy. Remember this is a company who praised itself for ceasing operations in China due to it's attitudes to free speech.
What is even more interesting is the revelation that Damore is on the autism spectrum. This explains plenty of Damore's views and ideologies expresed in the memo. The memo is very categorical and more controversially defines traits into rigid groups of Progressive, conservative, Man and Woman. People on the Autism spectrum often seek to categorise the world around them in order to better understand it. In a workplace which supposedly prides itself upon the principles of diversity, there seems to be a complete lack of understanding of the varying degrees of treatment and understanding a diverse workplace requires.
To me this situation was incredibly poorly handled by Google's management, what Damore said was definitely archaic but the protocols he took to say it were completely uniform and polite and as such should've been treated uniformally.
A clash of ideas will always lead to new ideas. The combination of a thesis with an antithesis creates a synthesis, a hybrid formed from the strongest parts of each argument. In an industry which is shaping the future through innovation, dismissing the chance to discuss anything is a wasteful decision.
-T
Conger, Kate 2017. Exclusive: Here's The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally At Google, Gizmodo, Viewed Dec 15 2019. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/08/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-circulating-internally-at-google/
Ethics unwrapped 2019. Ethics defined: Utalitarianism. webpage, Mccombs School of Business. Viewed Dec 15 2019. https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/utilitarianism
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