California law says conditional resignations count when the conditions are met. Gebru proposed discussing a resignation date after she was back from vacation.[1] Those conditions were not met.

California law allows the employer to accelerate the last day of work. Not the effective date of resignation.

Gebru advised coworkers to stop writing documents about DEI initiatives. Not to stop work.

[1] https://twitter.com/timnitgebru/status/1334341991795142667

Is it illegal to say they resigned when you fired them? It makes sense to say that they resigned when you accelerated their termination after they said they want to quit, even if you still legally treat it as a normal firing. Pretty sure Google still filed the paperwork's correctly so she got her unemployment benefits, and if they didn't then I trust their lawyers view on it much better than yours.

I don't know if it's illegal. And I don't think it matters. What matters to me it casts doubt on everything else Google claimed. And it's petty.

They didn't just say she resigned. They said they accepted her resignation. You can't accept what wasn't offered.

> I'm not trying to prove she "voluntarily quit" vs was "discharged" via California law. I'm arguing that Google used resigned in a way that wasn't a lie, and referencing California law to show how it uses the word resignation, and is therefore a reasonable use of the word.

You can't first claim that you're not using California law in your argument, then immediately cliam that your arguement is based in California law.

Particularly when I explained how your undertanding of California law is mistaken, and doubly so when the crux of your misunderstanding is what a resignation consists of.

> ... California law says that conditional resignations count as resignations, as well as accelerating resignations(depending on pay) ...

_If_ it was a resignation in the first place, which requires the employee to set the end date. That is not this situation.

The point is for someone to be lying their use of the word has to be inconsistent with how any reasonable person could use the word. My argument is that if you use the word in the way California law uses it your not lying. But also if you don't use it in the way California law uses it but the way U.S. law uses your not lying. Or if you use it in a manner that's inconsistent with California law and U.S. law but is how people use the word in everyday language your not lying.

"Did Gebru voluntarily quit according to California law?"

"Is it obviously lying to say resigned?"

These are two separate questions.

Also I'm not convinced that it says anywhere in the California statutes that a letter of resignation requires an end date to be considered a letter of resignation. (It might say that about voluntary quitting, it might say that in case law, but I don't think it says clearly in any statute that to be considered a letter of resignation it requires an end date (which is different from whether or not it was a voluntary quit)

> But also if you don't use it in the way California law uses it but the way U.S. law uses your not lying.

You've given no citations that "US law" is somehow different than California law here. I've stuck to the specific citations directly applicable to their situation, but the idea that if the employer is the one who specifies the end date of employment, it's a firing not a resignation is pretty universal across the western world.

And yes, using "everyday language" to make public statements about a legal situation that if you used the legal definition you'd be making the opposite statement is very much a lie.

Additionally, even the "everyday language" argument has you making a distinction between "voluntary quit" and "voluntarily leave a job or other position". The crux is that if the employer specifies the end date, it's not voluntary on the part of the employee. Both under legal definitions and common parlance.