CNN is Wasting America’s Time on an “Anti-Diversity Memo” That Doesn’t Exist
Is it too much to ask that media members actually read James Damore’s “manifesto” before they cover it?
Have you read the #GoogleManifesto?
Don’t worry, CNN hasn’t either.
Concerning (former) Google employee James Damore’s ten-page memo outlining his views on the reasons and remedies for gender (and racial) disparity within the company, there is much to be discussed. Did he have a point, or did he, as Google’s Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance, Danielle Brown said, “advance incorrect gender assumptions?” Should he have expressed these views in a workplace setting in the first place? Was Google’s handling of the situation (which ultimately culminated in his firing) in line with their own stated value of upholding diversity, or even legal? There is much rich soil for real debate here.
However, in order to coherently discuss any of these angles, it is necessary to actually read the document in question, which is why it’s so troubling to find that most of the major news outlets covering the story appear not to have done so (and that’s being charitable and assuming that they are not engaging in willful misrepresentation). Although CNN is certainly not the only offender, in the interest of brevity I am going to focus on them as a well-known, mainstream source that has repeatedly referred to the memo’s contents in misleading and outright inaccurate terms.
For example, a write-up in CNN’s tech section by Lauren Segall termed it an “anti-diversity memo” and stated that Damore “argued that women are not biologically fit for tech roles”.
CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin also covered the controversy in her segment on Tuesday. Baldwin introduces the segment by stating that Damore was fired from Google “after blasting diversity and women in the workplace.” Baldwin later paraphrased the memo: “ . . . he’s essentially saying ‘well, I don’t really like women anywhere near a computer’.”
These shameless straw man representations are frankly more appropriate to a backwater Twitter troll than to professionals working for one of the country’s leading news sources.
It’s hard to see how Damore is “anti-diversity” when he states:
I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more …
I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority.
In fact, Damore puts forward a list of his own suggestions on how to “increase women’s representation in tech and without resorting to discrimination.” His list includes making tech more “people-oriented”, “collaborative”, and “less stressful”, as well as “truly endorsing (as part of our culture) part-time work”.
Damore’s memo, furthermore, does not state anywhere that women are “not biologically fit” for tech jobs. Here’s some of what it does say:
. . . the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and . . . these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.
. . . . I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism).
As the excerpts above should show, Damore’s position was not about wanting to keep women out of tech, but rather questioning whether sexism is the only, or even the main factor in disparity, and arguing that Google’s methods to achieve diversity sometimes lead to the very discrimination it is ostensibly trying to avoid. While it would be fair to say that Damore is critical of Google’s methods for achieving diversity, it is grossly unfair to say that he is “anti-diversity.”
Personally, I don’t see Damore’s memo as an unassailable masterpiece of dispassionate logic, and there’s a lot in it that I don’t agree with. Those things are up for debate, but regardless of what I think of his position, CNN’s representation of it has been repeatedly, indefensibly false. If a viewer or reader were to rely on their coverage of the controversy, they would come away with a very inaccurate understanding of the memo’s contents, and therefore, an inaccurate understanding of all the issues surrounding his termination.
In short, the mainstream media’s coverage has resulted in a social media controversy that revolves around a fictional version of the document, which is a regrettable waste of everyone’s time.
