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August 6 to August 12

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The Google programmer fired this week for writing a memo on biological gender differences told Real Clear Investigations he is taking action against the online giant.

"I didn't think it was legal for them to fire me," James Damore told RealClearInvestigations in a phone interview. "I filed two claims with National Labor Relations Board. And I may be pursuing other things."

Damore, a 28-year-old senior software engineer who began working at Google in December 2013, was fired Monday night after the leak of an internal memo he wrote regarding company diversity last week. The episode set off a media firestorm with critics on the left decrying the memo as an "anti-diversity screed" and critics on the right assailing the reaction as political correctness run amok. Damore argued that "personality differences" between men and women - women's "higher levels of anxiety" relative to men, and their "stronger interest in people rather than things" - suggest men and women "differ in part due to biological causes." The memo said "these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership." He advocated embracing the differences and said pretending they don't exist hurts female employees.

Although Damore has not retained legal counsel yet, legal experts say he might have a strong case based unfair retaliation and anti-discrimination laws. Tim Cavanaugh reports:

"It is illegal obviously to retaliate against an employee for engaging in a protected activity," said Rob Hennig of the Beverly Hills firm Hennig Ruiz. "You demonstrate that through temporal proximity: If an employee filed a complaint and then was fired, you can infer there is a relationship between the two. That's an issue that needs to be adjudicated, but that would potentially be a violation of National Labor Relations Act."

Hennig also pointed to a section of the Golden State's labor code prohibiting retaliation against a whistleblower who "has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses a violation of state or federal statute."

The memo raised a concern about "setting org level OKRs [objectives and key results] for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination."

"In California, even if you're wrong and it's not illegal, if you are raising the issue in good faith, you are still protected in that activity," Hennig said.

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