James Damore was a Google engineer who quite politely suggested alternative approaches to promote gender diversity. And Google, in the throes of an insane PC culture, fired him.
Damore was fired for “advancing harmful gender stereotypes”. What were these stereotypes?
That the gender gap in coding could be explained because women are more interested in people and men are more interested in things. Women were more cooperative and he suggested and that the gender gap could be reduced by making “software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming.”
There's a poll out now, it's a Harvard-Harris poll, so it's serious business, looking at public approval for a variety of issues. Including Damore's firing.
Here's what it asks.
A Google employee posted a 10 page memo on an internal employee site opposing the diversity programs at Google saying there are differences between men and women that may be responsible in general for the lack of women engineers that the programs are not addressing. Do you believe Google was right or wrong to fire the employee for furthering gender stereotypes?
The majority of respondents oppose the firing.
56% of women think it was wrong even though the excuse was accusing James Damore of sexism. A majority of black people oppose the move. A bare majority of Hispanics support it.
Democrats split 50/50. Hillary voters support it 55 to 45 (and that tells you a lot about why Trump won and where he made inroads.)
But what is troubling is where the support for the move lies.
There's a 50-50 split among college educated respondents.
A majority of urban respondents support and suburban residents oppose.
59% of the 18-34 demographic support the move. 53% support it among the 35-49 crowd.
The 18-34 support ratio is higher than among liberals.
The contempt for freedom of expression (not counting the sovereign right to smoke pot) among younger age groups remains one of the biggest threats to freedom in this country. And while not all is lost, people do get conservative as they grow older, certain values are foundational. They have to exist for this country to be maintained.