Google on Monday fired James Damore, the engineer who wrote a 10-page memo saying the gender gap in computer engineering is due to “biological” differences that disadvantage women. All of this has sparked a heated debate. But among many lawyers, Google’s action was clear-cut.
Richard Ford is a professor at Stanford Law School. He says that while the government must honor your First Amendment right to free speech, the law is pretty clear that employers don’t have to.
"Employers have broad latitude to fire employees based on ideas that are antithetical to the ethos of the workplace," Ford said.
There are exceptions. An employer can’t fire somebody because of their race, religion or -- in California -- because of their political activity.
In the case of Damore, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post that to suggest a group of colleagues have traits that make them less “biologically suited” to engineering is contrary to Google’s basic values.