Update
I think the title of this article in the Washington Examiner sums it up best:
Google is more afraid of liberal outrage than federal law
In other words, the leadership at Google likely recognizes that they are violating federal law in terminating the employment of the ‘manifesto’ author. Yet they’ve calculated (using their version of logic and mathematics) that it will be less costly than absorbing the wrath of the leftists.
August 8, 2017
The political correctness of the Left is coming back to bite them… The notion that a company needs to have a ‘Vice President of Diversity’ shows you how far they’ve traveled into the outer limits. Any successful executive managing a business knows that having employees with a diversity of experience, expertise, and thought processes (these attributes of diversity are what is important to a business) represents the best portfolio to manage risk. This recent incident at Google is evidence that some corporations are all about ‘virtue signaling’ and not really sincere about their policies:
The catch-22 here is that Google, which states that they value all forms of diversity, political, lifestyle, gender, sexuality and otherwise, was faced with one of its own exercising his stated right to diversity. It just so happens that his opinion did not align with the progressive worldview consistently voiced inside young tech firms. So what does Google do when presented with an opportunity to show real tolerance for others’ opinions?
They fire the person.
…
By lopping off the head of the person who dared express this worldview, even if that worldview was offensive to others, Google willfully proved the engineer’s point: Namely that the company itself is using the diversity card as a straw man and it does not engage in the practice of true tolerance, which can be defined as acceptance of others’ opinions, even when you disagree with them.
Source: The Company That Knows Everything About You Is Now Punishing Thought Crimes