One such employee was James Damore, a 28 year-old software engineer who had worked at Google since 2013.7% In July 2017, Damore posted a manifesto entitled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber," which was critical of Google's diversity efforts to several of the company's internal discussion boards. 77 Damore argued that the underrepresentation of women in technical roles was partially the result of inherent biological differences rather than learned behavior, discrimination, or a toxic workplace culture.78 Damore also wrote that Google discriminated against employees who were politically or ideologically conservative and accused the company of "shaming dissenters into silence."79 Google fired Damore two days after his manifesto was leaked to the public. 80 While some praised Google's decision to fire Damore, critics on both sides of the political spectrum argued that the company had indeed -as Damore initially argued -discriminated against him for expressing conservative beliefs. Still other critics expressed concern about what Damore's firing implied for free speech in the workplace more broadly. 82 Tensions between Google's politically conservative and liberal employees showed no signs of abating. In November 2017, Google fired a transgender engineer named Tim Chevalier for violating the company's code of conduct. Chevalier, who also identified as disabled, argued that Google fired him for making comments "in opposition to the discrimination, harassment, and white supremacy" that he witnessed on Google's discussion boards. 84 Google responded that Chevalier had crossed the line of appropriate communication, citing posts in which he criticized "white boys" and condemned Republicans for associating with white supremacists. 85 Meanwhile, in June 2018, Google fired Kevin Cernekee, an engineer who was active on the company's conservative internal message boards. Google claimed to have terminated Cernekee for reasons wholly unrelated to his political leanings, writing that he had been terminated "for multiple violations of company policies, including improperly downloading company information and misuse of the remote-access software system." 87 Cernekee, Damore, and Chevalier were unconvinced by Google's purported justification for their firings, and sought legal action. Damore and Cernekee submitted complaints with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Cernekee claimed that Google fired him for expressing conservative views, while Damore claimed his memo fell within protections for discussing workplace conditions. 88 Separately, Damore also joined a class action lawsuit that claimed that Google was biased against conservative white men.89 Chevalier, on the other hand, sued Google for wrongful termination, claiming that his political statements fell within his legal workplace protections. 9091 While a variety of federal and local provisions protected individual speech, both in public and in the workplace, it was 6 This document is authorized for use only by sachi kapoor in OB Fall 2022 taught by DAPHNA MOTRO, Hofstra University from Sep 2022 to Dec 2022