Google Faces Lawsuit From Former Employee For Racial Discrimination Against Black Employees
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Google is now facing a lawsuit by a former employee that accuses Google of being biased against black employees by ensuring they are boxed away in lower-level jobs and have no chance of advancing.
The former employee, April Curley, sued Google on Friday and the lawsuit which speaks on the company’s systematic discrimination was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose.
Curley, who worked for Google from 2014 to 2020 when she was fired, was assigned with recruiting “some of the brightest and most talented black students” from historically Black colleges and universities.
Curley told CBS Mornings that she recruited over 500 students to be hired who were “talented” and “qualified”. In the lawsuit, she claims Google placed her and the students into “dead-end jobs” with “lower pay” and Google categorized them as not being “googly enough”.
After speaking out about being treated unfairly, Curley was reprimanded ultimately dismissed from her job. The lawsuit detailed this situation saying that Curley was reprimanded for speaking up in team meetings in 2019. She was later placed on a performance improvement plan, and in September 2020 she was fired.
The lawsuit also said, “Google is engaged in a nationwide pattern or practise of intentional race discrimination and retaliation and maintains employment policies and practices that have a disparate impact against Black employees throughout the United States.”
While Google did not comment on the situation, in the past Google told the Washington Post that it disagreed with Curley’s description of how she was terminated.
The lawsuit is similar to many complaints in the past from black employees who have worked at Google over the years.
While Google was one of the largest private employers in the United States, the company did not effectively implement racial and gender diversity within the establishment, especially in high-paid jobs.
The 2021 diversity report only showed that 4.4% of Google’s U.S employees were “Black+” and this included mixed races, which made it far below the national average of 9.1 %.
The lawsuit also detailed that difficult questions were constructed to ensure the black employees performed poorly in interviews.
Curley added that she was mistaken for other black female colleagues throughout her years of being there, as well as being subjected to a hostile work environment. She explained that neither the other colleagues nor herself were allowed to speak or present during meetings. She was also questioned by a manager about which colleagues she wanted to sleep with, which made her feel demeaned and sexualized.
Watch the interview with April Curley below
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