Google Employee Claims Wrongful Firing

First ex-Google engineer James Damore sued his former employer for firing him after he put out a memo saying women aren’t fit for tech jobs. Now another ex-Google worker has brought his own suit against the company after he came out hard against Damore. Tim Chevalier's complaint—which Wired calls a "new window into the simmering culture war inside Google over diversity"—says Google canned him because he was too "politically liberal" on internal message boards, where he posted comments about Damore's "misogynistic" memo and accused Damore of having "white boy" privilege. Damore included some of Chevalier's posts in his own suit to prove there was discrimination against white men at Google. Other Chevalier posts that irritated HR included one in which he ripped into GOPers after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last summer, per Ars Technica.

A manager also reportedly told Chevalier he was too deep into "social activism." Chevalier, who identifies as a "disabled, queer, and transgender" man, says he should have the right to go after those who harass other people and that "anti-discrimination laws are meant to protect marginalized and underrepresented groups, not those who attack them." His suit claims the Google work environment was a "hostile and abusive" one that doesn't protect its female, LGBTQ, and minority workers, per Gizmodo, which notes it spoke to three other current or ex-employees who say they were reprimanded for speaking out on sexism or racism there. In a statement, Google says it's all for "lively debate," but "like any workplace, that doesn't mean anything goes. All employees acknowledge our code of conduct ... under which promoting harmful stereotypes based on race or gender is prohibited." (A Google search proved this man's innocence.)