Anti-diversity document written by Google employee encounters mass internal criticism

In recent years, Silicon Valley has made strides towards improving gender and racial diversity, but it is still not the industry’s strong suit. Reflecting how issues are still present is a document circling within Google that decries and calls for an end to the company’s equality efforts. This manifesto of sorts has gone “internally viral,” with many employees now awaiting Google’s response.

Several Google employees on Friday tweeted about the document with Motherboard having seen screenshots of the 10 page Google Doc that was shared on a company mailing list. Written by a senior software engineer, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” calls for an end to diversity initiatives that aim to account for various historical imbalances.

Update: Gizmodo has acquired and posted the document in full. It includes a reply to the “public response and misrepresentation.”

Update 2: Read the official responses from Google’s head of Diversity, as well as from their VP of Engineering here.

It noted that Google should no longer offer programs for underrepresented gender and racial minorities, and makes the claim that the gap between the number of men and women in tech comes down to biological differences.

Instead it proposes “ideological diversity” due to how Googlers with conservative political leanings are allegedly discriminated against at the company. It specifically wants these expressions of beliefs to be prioritized over other forms of diversity.

https://twitter.com/sadams007/status/893610858193997825

https://twitter.com/louisgray/status/893296455137599492

The document has encountered wide criticism from a large majority of employees, with many taking to Twitter to defend and support their colleagues. At the same time, one Googler says that the author has reached out to note “supportive” responses to the claims set forth in the document.

https://twitter.com/andybons/status/893617623367380992

This document has been widely shared throughout the company’s engineering teams, with the Google Doc failing to load at several points on Friday night due to mass simultaneous readership. One employee noted to Motherboard that: “If I had to guess, almost every single woman in engineering has seen it.”

Several have taken to Twitter, to say that they will be closely watching how human resources handles this situation. Google has yet to respond.

https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/893287112732291072