SAN FRANCISCO _ James Damore, a former Google engineer who was fired after he wrote a controversial memo claiming that biological differences between men and women might explain why there's a gender gap in tech, is alleging in a lawsuit that the tech firm discriminates against men, conservatives and white people.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday and seeks class-action status, also claims that Google uses "illegal hiring quotas" to employ a certain percentage of women and minorities.
It alleges that Google singles out and punish employees like Damore who expressed views that don't align with how the majority of employees at the tech firm feel about politics and diversity efforts.
"There's kind of a 'Lord of the Flies' mentality there where a person can be singled out and then group shamed, bullied and fired," said Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer for the Dhillon Law Group in a press conference on Monday.
Another former Google engineer, David Gudeman, is also named in the lawsuit.
In August, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a memo to employees that the tech firm fired Damore because he violated the company's code of conduct, which states that Googlers should "do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."
