Engineer claims Google fired him because he’s conservative

A former Google employee says the company fired him after he raised concerns about how fellow right-leaning staffers were treated by management.

Kevin Cernekee told The Wall Street Journal, in an article published Thursday, that he was terminated in 2018 for allegedly misusing company equipment, a charge he denies, after years of internally advocating for conservative employees of Google who he says were subject to bullying and in some cases retaliation by supervisors.

{mosads}“Historically, there’s been a lot of bullying at Google,” he told the newspaper. “There’s a big political angle, and they treat the two sides very differently.”

In one example shared with the Journal, a fellow employee apparently questioned one of Cernekee’s supervisors about his conservative advocacy on a public message board, writing: “Can’t we just fire the poisonous assholes already?”

“I very much regret joining Google,” Cernekee told the newspaper. “I figured it would be a good place to see intelligent arguments through. It didn’t really turn out how I expected.”

A Google spokesperson denied that the company fires employees for political reasons.

“We enforce our workplace policies without regard to political viewpoint,” the spokesperson told The Hill. “Lively debate is a hallmark of Google’s workplace culture; harassment, discrimination, and the unauthorized access and theft of confidential company information is not.”

One of Cernekee’s acquaintances at the company was James Damore, an engineer who was fired and alleged a similar bias against conservatives at Google after writing an internal blog post stating his belief that women were less suited to tech jobs than men, according to the Journal.

Cernekee says he has spent more than $100,000 in legal fees against Google alleging wrongful termination, and has one active National Labor Relations Board claim against the company.

Google has come under fire by GOP lawmakers for perceived bias against conservatives, both internally and on its platforms, like YouTube. Republicans have pushed for an investigation of the tech giant, and President Trump called for a lawsuit against the company last month.