> I don't think forced political expression is entirely a boogeyman.

Sure, someone complained that people weren't knowledgable and up for debating an issue that was important to him. But notably, no one was forced to express anything, he was simply disappointed that they weren't willing to discuss the issue. Actually it wasn't even that, he was disappointed that, instead of expressing concern over the death of a black man, his coworkers were more concerned over how people were protesting[0]. No really, what he complained about was his coworker expressing this opinion:

> “These protestors aren’t going to solve anything, ” she said. ”Like, what are those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do? Make people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they can’t get to Grand Central? It’s annoying . I just can’t stand it.”

I can see why that would be disappointing, but even still that disappointment is a far cry from forced political expression.

> When employees insisted that Kay Coles James must not be allowed on the AI advisory council[2], they didn't argue that having her would make Google do some particular evil thing. They argued that she's a mean person who holds the wrong political views, so Google must shun her.

But they did! There were other objections too, but one of the objections was specifically that James's values are directly contradictory to those that Google expresses, both in terms of diversity issues and in terms of AI.

> Not only are James’ views counter to Google’s stated values, but they are directly counter to the project of ensuring that the development and application of AI prioritizes justice over profit.

From the original petition. The thinking, which I broadly agree with, goes something like this: KCJ isn't an expert on AI. She's essentially a layperson, so her value on the ethics board would be as an ethics person, not as an AI person. Two of Google's AI ethics principles are "2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias." and "3. Be built and tested for safety.". KCJ appears to be comfortable using AI for military applications, arguably a violation of 3, and certainly doesn't care for avoiding bias towards trans people, a violation of 2. She didn't make any sense on the committee, and I'd argue that the followup made it clear that it was more meant to pander than to actually address issues.

> I'm a very strong Andrew Yang supporter, bumper sticker and pile of campaign swag and all, and I never bring it up in the workplace because I'm not there to do partisan politics.

Sure, and I don't generally bring up politics at work either. But that doesn't mean that I should deny other people, who are more directly affected by things, the ability to do so.

[0]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjvy3/heres-the-memo-abo...

Maybe I'm misreading the argument. It sounds like the petition claims merely hearing her out is wrong; that because she disagrees on some hot-button political issues, nothing she says can possibly be valuable, and listening to her thoughts on AI ethics would constitute pandering to her side on those political issues. If so, that's a core example of the kind of toxic political wrangling that I'm opposed to in the workplace.

Personally, I think there's a difference between hearing someone out and elevating someone to be on an ethics council. And the only reason she was included was that she's a notable Republican, and Google was concerned that conservatives would complain if there wasn't a notable conservative in the group. In other words, she was included only for (partisan) political reasons. Calling that out isn't introducing politics, it's recognizing them.