I don't really understand the forum he submitted to. It sounds like a huge public internal mailing list. That sounds like the wrong forum to me. This probably could've gone to the new VP of diversity directly.
Maybe I'm overly paranoid but I pretty much never write anything about race, religion, gender, disabilities, age, etc... at work. And if I ever felt I needed to I'd do so very carefully, probably with the assistance of HR.
It's easy for the dominant majority in power to see this as holding back the one aspect in their life where they feel as if they are limited in what they can do/say. But these limits and implied apprehensions exist for good reason, IMO.
> Maybe I'm overly paranoid
Maybe you aren't, and maybe you shouldn't have to be?
> the dominant majority in power
Who is this? Men? Liberals? The 1%?
This exact target has made it into more than just a few institutions.
> He selectively uses research
In inviting discourse, he is also inviting "the other side" of the argument to do as much the same. I think his effort was big enough without raising the bar - why not bear the burden of evaluating the evidence alone? This memo is explicitly a work in progress, the choice to cherry-pick sources that support his conclusions is purposeful, since he is trying to demonstrate the that the status-quo might be wrong.
> climate change deniers often..
There is something of an active debate on that topic, I haven't heard of any tech worker fired for discussing the issue.
> but there is a time and a place
Did he not release to the correct forum? What is the correct time and place? I'd also note: statements have implied/pragmatic meanings. A statement like "I'd have sex with [Catherine]" would be assumed to have an implicit meaning. The memo, in contrast, is pretty explicit in its stated aim.
> then he's done that too
Well, maybe. He certainly lit a match..