Google is right. Stop defending sexist views.

LETTERS LETTERS@USATODAY.COM

In David Mastio’s column, “Congrats,

Google, you found the worst way to build diversity,” he asserts that Google’s diversity vice president, Danielle Brown, essentially told James Damore (the white male engineer who wrote the memo) to “shut up.” She didn’t. Brown merely reaffirmed Google’s commitment to greater gender and racial diversity, and accurately described the memo as promoting incorrect assumptions about gender. Specifically, the assumption that males are biologically more suited to engineering and leadership than females.

Mastio also writes that the memo “endorses the need for diversity.” But the memo labels gender diversity a foolish goal because women don’t have what it takes. The only “diversity” it advocates is hiring more political conservatives (presumably, white males).

Conservative white males once openly and proudly argued that biological differences made black people far less suitable for high-level jobs and leadership positions than white people. If the author of the memo had made his “biological differences” argument based on race, rather than gender, would Mastio still defend his right to “dissent”?

Google’s efforts to build gender and racial diversity are commendable steps in the right direction. And it was right to fire Damore for his harmful words. Bruce Allen

San Francisco