In her initial response to the memo, Brown, who joined from Intel Corp. in June, suggested that Google was open to all hosting “difficult political views,” including those in the memo. However, she left open the possibility that Google could penalize the engineer for violating company policies. “But that discourse needs to work alongside the principles of equal employment found in our Code of Conduct, policies, and anti-discrimination laws,” she wrote.
But reaction to Damore’s firing in conservative circles was swift and harsh. One meme doing the rounds online reworked Google’s famous logo to read “Goolag,” a reference to Soviet-era forced-labor camps. Breitbart accompanied a news article of his dismissal with a photograph of a woman wearing a gag with the word “silenced” written on it. Eric Weinstein, who runs Peter Thiel’s investment firm, tweeted that Google should stop teaching girls that their “path to financial freedom lies not in coding but in complaining to HR.”
The subject of Google’s ideological bent came up at the most recent shareholder meeting, in June. A shareholder asked executives whether conservatives would feel welcome at the company. Executives disagreed with the idea that anyone wouldn’t.
“The company was founded under the principles of freedom of expression, diversity, inclusiveness and science-based thinking,” Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt said at the time. “You’ll also find that all of the other companies in our industry agree with us.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.