Google fired James Damore for a controversial gender memo—now he’s suing

Enlarge / Google CEO Sundar Pichai. (credit: Nguyen Hung Vu)

Google engineer James Damore was fired last August after he wrote a controversial memo arguing that Google had gone overboard in its efforts to promote diversity. He generated widespread outrage by suggesting that the under-representation of women at Google was a result of women's lesser interest in software engineering-rather than discrimination within the technology sector.

On Monday, Damore filed a lawsuit accusing the Mountain View search giant of systematic, illegal discrimination against conservatives and white men. He was joined in the lawsuit by David Gudeman, another Googler fired under similar circumstances.

"Damore, Gudeman, and other class members were ostracized, belittled, and punished for their heterodox political views, and for the added sin of their birth circumstances of being Caucasians and/or males," their lawsuit charges. Damore and Gudeman are seeking to represent all conservatives and white men who have allegedly faced discrimination at Google in a class-action lawsuit.

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