MOUNTAIN VIEW — In the wake of Google’s firing of engineer James Damore over his memo suggesting women are biologically unsuitable for tech and leadership jobs, the company is scrambling to limit the damage and calm the troops.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has cut short a family vacation to gather all hands for a “Town Hall” meeting Thursday.

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Damore’s anti-diversity letter and his firing sparked angry debate from coast to coast, with some decrying the software engineer’s sexism and others attacking a perceived blow by Google against free speech. The furor comes as Silicon Valley reels from a series of sexual harassment allegations by women in tech and as companies struggle to hire more women and minorities.

In his memo, Damore complained that at “left leaning” Google, employees with dissenting views are shamed into silence. And he outlined his view on the reasons why there are so few women in tech, arguing that females are more neurotic than men and less capable of handling stress.

Damore also accused Google of “discriminatory practices,” such as offering programs, mentoring and classes “only for people with a certain gender or race” and lowering the bar in hiring of “diversity” candidates. Damore could not be reached for comment.

Pichai, in a memo to Googlers, addressed Damore’s allegation about dissenters being silenced.

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“There are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint),” Pichai said. “They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent.”

Damore’s criticism of Google training programs and his complaint that some opportunities within the company are limited by race or gender are “important topics” for discussion, Pichai said.

But other parts of the memo violated Google’s code of conduct “by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace,” Pichai said.

“To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK,” Pichai said.

Damore on Monday filed a complaint against Google with the National Labor Relations Board. He told the New York Times that he’d entered the complaint before being fired and that it was illegal for an employer to fire someone in retaliation for such a complaint.

Legal experts were not optimistic about Damore’s chances in front of the labor board.

“Google would say, ‘We didn’t fire him because he filed a complaint, we fired him for his original memo which was disruptive and violated the ethos of our workplace and violated our code of conduct,'” said Stanford Law School professor Richard Ford.

California employers can fire workers at will, as long as the termination isn’t based on discrimination by race, sex or age, said UC Berkeley Law lecturer Elaine Rushing.

“He doesn’t fit into any of those categories,” Rushing said. “He will have a very steep uphill battle in my view of winning a wrongful termination case.”

Damore could argue that his memo was intended as workplace advocacy and thus was protected under federal law, but the law generally deals with labor organizing such as unionization, Ford said.

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“It’s a stretch,” Ford said. “The employer also has to be concerned about statements that might be discriminatory, particularly in a context where the person in question plays a role in hiring, promotion or salary determinations — and I understand at Google peer review is a big part of the evaluation process.”

A company can face legal problems such as lawsuits if it allows an employee to make sexist or racist comments without consequence, Ford said.

“Employers also have a responsibility to ensure that their workplace isn’t a hostile environment because of sex or race or other categories,” Ford said. “The employer has some responsibility to stop employees from saying things that are offensive to other members of the workforce. That’s one of the reasons why employers have the prerogative to regulate speech.”