The ex-Google employee who wrote an offensive letter about women is now suing the company for discriminating against white conservative men

James Damore, the ex-Google engineer who wrote an offensive memo about women last year, has filed a lawsuit claiming Google fired him for being white, male, and conservative. According to the lawsuit, the search engine giant failed to protect employees with “views deviating from the majority view at Google” from workplace harassment.

Damore made headlines in early August after he wrote a 10-page internal memo – otherwise known as a “manifesto against diversity” – arguing that women in tech are not as successful as their male counterparts because they are biologically less capable of engineering (fyi: there is literally zero scientific evidence to back that up).

Now, five months after being fired from Google, Damore and David Gudeman, another former Google engineer, filed a lawsuit in Santa Clara Superior Court seeking monetary, non-monetary, and punitive damages.

"Damore, Gudeman, and other class members were ostracized, belittled, and punished for their heterodox political views, and for the added sin of their birth circumstances of being Caucasians and/or males," the lawsuit reads. "This is the essence of discrimination — Google formed opinions about and then treated Plaintiffs not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in groups with assumed characteristics."

“You shouldn’t have to prove you didn’t vote for the president to get a job at Google,” Damore’s laywer, Harmeet Dhillon, said.

It should come as no surprise that Google says it looks forward to defending itself in court. At the time of Damore’s firing, Google CEO Sundar Pichai issued a memo of his own which made it clear that Damore was fired because he violated the company’s code of conduct “by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”

Aka, Damore wasn’t fired for being, white, male, or conservative — he was fired for discriminating against women.

Damore’s lawsuit comes in the wake of another suit against Google. In September, three former female employees filed a class-action complaint that alleges the company knowingly underpays women. Basically, while women fight for equal pay, Damore is fighting for his right to discriminate against others.

We’ll be watching to see how both suits unfold.