Gender and Free Speech at Google (A)
By: and and
Sign Up Now!
Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title.
Learn about membership options,
or view our freely available titles.
- Synopsis
-
In August 2017, Google fired James Damore, a 28-year-old software engineer who had been employed by the company since 2013. The move came after Damore penned an internal company memo titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber," which posited that innate biological differences between men and women-as opposed to hiring biases, gender discrimination, or a hostile workforce-were at least partially responsible for the low numbers of women in tech. At the time, 20% of Google's tech workforce, and 31% of its overall staff, was female. Damore also admonished Google for silencing opinions that challenged what he viewed as the company's politically liberal belief system. Reactions to both the memo's content and Google's decision to fire Damore were swift and varied. Some praised the company for signaling intolerance of any marginalization of women. Others criticized Google for terminating an employee for a seemingly innocuous act of expression. Danielle Brown, Google's new vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, hired just a few weeks before the memo was leaked to the public, must now advise Google's top leadership team on dealing with the fallout.
The main learning objectives of this case are to help students: Survey explanations that have been given for the lower number of women in tech Evaluate strategies to increase representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities in tech Review legal protections for free speech in the workplace as well as arguments for free speech in general Appreciate the challenges of managing freedom of expression while trying to promote specific values and an organizational culture that may run counter to some people's views Develop a framework for how to draw lines regarding acceptable and unacceptable speech in the workplace
- Copyright:
- 2018
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- Publisher:
- Harvard Business School Publishing
- Date of Addition:
- 04/03/19
- Copyrighted By:
- President and Fellows of Harvard College
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Business and Finance
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.
Reviews
Other Books
- by Nien-He Hsieh
- by Martha J. Crawford
- by Sarah Mehta
- in Nonfiction
- in Business and Finance