Mitalee Desai
Aug 9, 2017 · 1 min read

I mean, yes, if I spread material related to my personal beliefs at work. It goes against most companies’ codes of conduct. If a Richard Dawkins-type came to the workplace and spread a manifesto on why he thinks people who follow a religion are stupid and have belief systems that should be questioned, that would likely violate some kind of code of conduct at most companies. It’s fine that he thinks that, perhaps, but it is a whole different thing to bring that up, especially in such a blatant and public way, at work. The author of the manifesto was not savvy enough to make his point in a constructive way that would have saved him his job as well as opened up a conversation in an appropriate way. Just the fact that Google has internal discussions like this, and political opinions are even mentioned, is a testament to Google. Most companies would not even foster that kind of environment, let alone entertain someone’s “manifesto” that basically questions the legitimacy of an entire group of employees based solely on their gender (or race, or creed, or….).

TL;DR: It is fine for a company to fire someone who brings up their beliefs at work and creates a hostile environment, not necessarily because it’s a minority opinion, but because it basically throws his colleagues (of a certain kind) under the bus, and in a very public, very Google-related way.

    Mitalee Desai

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