The story is currently at "1600 points by QUFB 14 hours ago | 2129 comments" so your take away that you can't discuss this topic is indeed ironic.

The primary place where the policies should be discussed is the company. He got fired for sharing his opinions. I don't see how is that supporting open discussion of the topic?

> The fact that group X is known to use certain tactic does not mean Y is using it too.

No, the use of English in politics (which this is) is pretty consistent, actually, in my experience. If he wanted to have a discussion, point at a policy and suggest an alternative rather than falling back on "merit is good, women are terrible engineers".

Replacing discriminatory hiring with paid apprenticeships and other education for groups the organisation is lacking in, would be a great example. Men can still get into Google because there's more of them in the pool. They're never discriminated against for a job, since the apprenticeship pool is separate from the job pool. Google gets a more-qualified, more-diverse workplace with more control over its training program. A win for everybody.

Firstly, I'm not a native speaker and I don't dare to judge how consistently is English used in politics. But once again, I claim that making conclusions merely based on "language similarity" or something like that is a poor way to discuss stuff.

Secondly, I find it perfectly valid to discuss the very foundation of the policies (instead of discussing individual policies).

FWIW this does not mean I agree with the memo. But I think the immediate calls for getting the guy fired (and firing him) are damaging for the discussion.