By this point, almost every American that follows politics and current events should know about James Damore, the former Google employee who was fired after releasing a 10-page manifesto against the company’s politically correct, anti-conservative environment. Google claimed that the reason for the firing was because Damore broke their Code of Conduct, but the more likely scenario is that the tech giant didn’t like dealing with people who are critical of the way in which they operate, even if said criticism is legitimate and based in fact.

In his memo, Damore wrote that while he strongly believes in gender and racial diversity, he believes Google “has created several discriminatory practices,” including “programs, mentoring, and classes for people with a certain gender or race,” “a high priority queue and special treatment for diversity candidates,” “hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for diversity candidates by decreasing the false negative rate,” and “reconsidering any set of people if its not diverse enough, but not showing the same scrutiny in the reverse direct.”

The reason that Google has all of these diversity programs and practices that Damore alluded to in his manifesto is because they claim to stand for equality, which the company proves through its actions that in reality it stands for anything but. Equality does not mean giving special treatment to some and denying it to others, all based on skin color or genitalia. Furthermore, equality does not mean listening to some groups of people but silencing others with whom you disagree, as we saw in the case of James Damore. Google can claim that it believes in equality all it wants, but truthfully, they do not. (Related: Google has been turned into a left wing snowflake echo chamber that crushes diversity of thought.)

But this 10-page memo isn’t the only criticism of Google that Damore has dished out as of late. In a recent interview with Business Insider, Damore told columnist Steve Kovach that being a conservative employee at Google is far from easy. “Really, it’s like being gay in the 1950s,” the former Google engineer said. “These conservatives have to stay in the closet and have to mask who they really are. And that’s a huge problem because there’s open discrimination against anyone who comes out of the closet as a conservative.”

If Google really did believe in creating an environment of tolerance, acceptance and equality, than why are conservative employees forced to choose between keeping their mouths shut and being openly discriminated against? Would Google operate in the same way if one of their gay employees were being forced to make the same decision? Why does this push for equality apply to every minority group except conservatives? (Related: Google is now penalizing all sites that do not conform to political correctness.)

Besides the fact that the company appears to be openly discriminating against those who do not comply with the progressive agenda, one of the many very real problems with giving special treatment based on race or gender is that things such as work ethic and skill are often ignored. The same can be said for affirmative action programs, which are embraced by thousands of schools and businesses across the country – what qualifies you for a certain position should be your skill, your work ethic, and your determination, not your race, your gender, or your sexual orientation.

Truth be told, if Google really did embrace equality then the internal operations of the company would look a lot different. Conservative employees would feel comfortable speaking out when necessary, and more importantly, the focus would shift away from race and gender and towards those who are most qualified for certain positions, regardless of whether they are gay or straight, white or black, or male or female. Because at the end of the day, equality isn’t about lowering the bar; it’s about raising it for everybody.

Sources include:

ZeroHedge.com

Breitbart.com

BusinessInsider.com