The controversy over tech giant Google’s firing of James Damore after he internally circulated a memo criticizing the company’s diversity-driven hiring practices has put America’s suffocating corporate culture in the limelight. Yet it also speaks to a broader question: Do modern conservatives blindly defend corporate rights to the detriment of all other values?
If so, Google is the perfect example of why they shouldn’t.
To be fair, many on the Right used the incident as another example of America’s deteriorating culture of free expression. Yet many within Google’s c-suite and its shareholders were likely comforted by the reality that those criticizing Damore’s firing were never going to do a damn thing about it.
Google, with its headquarters in liberal California, isn’t interested in protecting free expression if that means risking bad publicity. Nor does the company seem remotely interested in leading a counter-charge against those who prize diversity as the ultimate good if it means appearing un-politically correct. So no, there were no “market incentives” for Google to do anything but fire Damore. But that doesn’t make it right.
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