How a Man Can Stand Up to Quotas and Other Sexist Policies

When Google engineer James Damore wrote an internal memo saying essentially what Jordan Peterson said—that innate differences between men and women, rather than sexual discrimination, accounted for most of the disparity in the numbers of male and female tech workers—he was fired.

Damore noted that in trying to even up the numbers, Google was in fact discriminating against men. Given that his memo—posted on an internal company discussion board—got him fired, what should he have done? Should he have kept his mouth shut and played along? That is what many or even most men now do—and it is wrong, because nothing good ever came from cowardice.

The real question is not should you stand up for yourself but how. Damore wasn’t protesting a specific instance of sexism on the part of Google. He didn’t cite a well-qualified man being passed over for a less-qualified woman by the company. He was articulating a general point that ran against the politically correct culture of Google. He was never going to win that argument.

If Damore had protested a specific and provable grievance where he, or someone else in the company, had been discriminated against, he likely could have won his case that he was unjustly fired, and set a precedent. But he started from a weak position. Damore argued he was discussing working conditions and, therefore, his termination was illegal—a claim that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rejected. The NLRB did find that parts of Damore’s memo were protected speech, but they determined that Google didn’t fire him for that. The NLRB concluded: “The Employer determined that certain portions of [Damore’s] memorandum violated existing policies on harassment and discrimination....” Without a specific grievance, Damore lost the argument—and his job.