Google cancels town hall

Google CEO Sundar Pichai canceled a town hall meeting on gender discrimination an hour before it was scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon. In an email to staff, Pichai said he canceled the meeting because the names and specific questions of Google employees had been leaked online, making the employees fearful for their safety and concerned they would be targeted for speaking out at the gathering. The town hall was scheduled to hear employees’ grievances after a week of controversy surrounding a memo circulated last weekend by Google engineer James Damore. The leaked memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” criticized the tech company for pushing diversity while “alienating conservatives” and suggested biological differences between the sexes could be the reason why Google does not have more women in tech and leadership. Google fired Damore on Monday.