Ethics Reflection

“Contentious Memo Strikes Nerve inside Google and Out”

What should have Google done to manage this ethical challenge?

The main purpose of this reflection is to evaluate the decision of firing engineer James Damore
from the point of view of Google. In order to do so, the ethical decision-making framework will
be used. The four main steps will be followed, that is; investigate the ethical issues, identify
stakeholders, identify alternatives and evaluate the consequences of these alternatives.

First, a quick background of the problem needs to be provided so we can fully analyze it and
come up with better solutions. Everything starts with James Damore, an engineer who worked
for Google as a software developer until he was fired by the company in August 2017. The reason
for his dismissal was something called “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber”, commonly known
as Google’s Memo. In this memo James discussed Google’s internal policies related to diversity
and culture, specially addressing gender related issues. In James’ words, Google’s effort to reach
equal representation of women was “unfair, divisive and bad for business”.

Because Google is such a big international company, with more than 60,000 employees, this
memo became a subject of interest for newspapers and global media. In this situation, the
company considered that Damore had violated Google’s code of conduct and didn’t have any
other choice than to fire him. James Damore didn’t think that Google had the right to dismiss
him in that way, so he filed a formal complaint with the NLRB. And here is when the question
comes up: what should have Google done to manage this ethical challenge?

If we want to identify the ethical issues from Google’s point of view, we need to adopt different
ethical theories. At least two. This will provide us with different ways of approaching the
problem. The first theory I can think of is the utilitarian one. This means to achieve the greatest
good for the greatest number of people. I think this is what Google was thinking when they
decided to dismiss James Damore. If they wanted to maintain their image and keep working as
they have been doing before, they had no other option than firing Damore. That would create
the less amount of harm to the company. However, we can also approach the situation by
focusing on individual rights. This means that everyone has the right to freely express his/her
ideas. In this case, even if James Damore was working for Google, he also had the right to speak
about his company’s policies. Taking this into account, it wouldn’t seem reasonable to fire him.

Google is the final authority to make this decision. Should they follow their policy rules? Or
should they keep the right of their employee to express his feelings? Which could harm the
company and its workers. The next step is to identify the primary stakeholders in the decision
process. Who would be impacted directly? In this case the primary stakeholders are James
Damore (could be fired or not) and Google (decision can affect the company as a whole).
However, there are some other people that could be affected, but not directly. This would be
Google’s employees, of course, who could either agree or disagree with the company’s decision
which would build a difficult atmosphere to work in. The whole society could also be affected.
Google is such a big and mainstream company, this means that its movements and decisions are
followed globally.
At this point we are in a “either/or” scenario. Google can decide to fire James Damore or not to
fire him. The problem with this kind of scenarios is that we don’t have so many alternatives to
choose from. In this case, we can think of achieving a compromise. I compromise could be to
suspend James Damore from his salary for a limited amount of time. However, that would
probably send him the same message as firing him. Another alternative would be to speak with
him first and try to give him the opportunity to step back before firing him. Nevertheless,
probably at that time the memo would have gone viral and the harm been done.

It seems that in this scenario a compromise would not work nicely. So, we are stuck in a
“either/or” decision. Last step is to evaluate the consequences of taking any of these choices.
On the one hand, Google can decide not to dismiss James Damore. In this case we would be
respecting the right of a citizen (and an employee) to freely express his ideas. At the same, if the
company doesn’t take action against James, the general public and the media would feel like
Google was supporting Damore’s opinion. That would be hurtful to a large population of the
company. As it is said in the article, 31% of Google’s workforce are women, who would probably
disagree with the company’s decision and create an uncomfortable atmosphere.

On the other hand, Google can choose to dismiss James Damore. This seems like the easiest
solution for the company. Most of the population and social media would probably agree with
this decision even if James’ rights are not being respected. That would be a minor problem. Of
course, James can decide to sue Google arguing unjustified dismissal, but it would be an
individual against a huge multinational company. This decision benefits Google the most and
puts them in less trouble.

We could argue if Mr. Damore’s points had sense or not. It is said that 31% of Google’s workforce
are women and 20% of its technical staff. In the US, the percentage of women who graduate
each year as engineers is about 20%1, so numbers in the company seem to be reasonable. We
could also argue if Google’s policy of promoting women is wrong or right but that’s not the point
of this reflection. We need to focus on Google’s decision once the memo had been published.

As a conclusion, I would like to point out that the ethical theory shouldn’t be based on individual
rights. As it is pointed out by Mr. Chan in the article, “it is not about free discourse” the main
issue here is not to hurt the employees of a private company like Google. In the same line I also
agree with Katherine Stone; “there is no free-speech in the private sector workplace”. When you
decide to work for a private company like Google you should know what is their policy like and
accept it. If you don’t agree you could just go work somewhere else. Even if you expected to
make things “better” on your workplace by writing the memo, you should be aware that the
company could not agree. In this case, it would be reasonable for the company to take action in
order to protect their image and not to make the environment uncomfortable.

1
Data provided by ASME (American Association of Mechanical Engineers)