Hundreds of Google employees are calling on the tech giant to remove a conservative think tank president from a Google advisory board, accusing her of holding anti-trans, anti-gay views.

Kay Cole James, the president of the Heritage Foundation who is also black, was among the outside experts appointed to a company advisory board last week. Google's intention with the board was to recruit "diverse perspectives" to help guide the company's development on artificial intelligence, amid concerns the same technologies will one day disrupt society.

But on Monday, a group of anonymous employees published an open letter, demanding Google pull her appointment. The letter points to a tweet James made over Twitter, expressing her opposition to the Equality Act, a bill that seeks to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The #EqualityAct is anything but equality. This bill would shut down businesses and charities, politicize medicine, endanger parental rights, and open every female bathroom and sports team to biological males. Learn more here: https://t.co/eJPDvfJKEs — Kay Coles James (@KayColesJames) March 21, 2019

Her other tweets also show that James holds "anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant views," the letter claims. "By appointing James to the ATEAC (advisory council), Google elevates and endorses her views, implying that hers is a valid perspective worthy of inclusion in its decision making. This is unacceptable," the letter says

The document goes on to suggest Google appointed James to gain favor with the Trump administration. "In selecting James, Google is making clear that its version of 'ethics' values proximity to power over the wellbeing of trans people, other LGBTQ people, and immigrants," it adds.

So far, the letter has received over 830 signatures from anonymous Google employees, the organizers behind the effort say. In addition, more than 130 former Google employees, outside technology experts and staffers from separate tech companies, have signed the letter as well.

"Google can stand by its position as a supportive employer for LGBT people, or it can appoint people who hate us and oppose our equal rights as top advisors on important business issues. It can't do both." #StandAgainstTransphobia — Googlers Against Transphobia (@EthicalGooglers) April 1, 2019

The protest effort arrives a day after another member to the advisory council decided to bail. On Sunday, Alessandro Acquisti, an economist and privacy researcher, tweeted he had declined Google's invitation to join the board. "While I'm devoted to research grappling with key ethical issues of fairness, rights & inclusion in AI, I don't believe this is the right forum for me to engage in this important work," he said without elaborating.

The open letter is the latest internal protest effort to break out within the company. Last year, Google staffers began circulating a letter calling on the tech giant to cancel an AI research effort with the Pentagon. The letter quickly gained thousands of signatures and in response, Google ended the research effort.

Then in November, more than 20,000 Google workers staged a company-wide walkout, protesting the company's policy on workplace sexual harassment and discrimination.

So far, Google and the Heritage Foundation haven't responded to the open letter. However, one separate member of the advisory council is defending Google's decision to appoint James.

"I am openly liberal and as such I believe that bullying and shunning are problems, not solutions," said Joanna Bryson, a computer scientist, in a blog post. "If she (James) is in the room when I'm talking to Google, then I will try to learn from her like I try to learn from everyone, and I will try to persuade her to my perspective, as again I would do with anyone."

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