A lawsuit filed on Friday accuses Google of systemic racial bias against Black employees, alleging that the search engine giant directs them to lower-level positions, pays them less, and denies them advancement opportunities due to their race.
According to a complaint seeking class-action status, the Largest Search Engine company has a “racially biassed corporate culture” that favors white men, with Black people accounting for only 4.4 percent of employees and about 3% of leadership and technology staff.
April Curley, the plaintiff, also claimed that the Alphabet Inc unit created a hostile work environment for Blacks, including frequently requiring them to show identification or be questioned by security at the Mountain View, California campus.
Google has not yet responded to the allegations.
Google did not respond to requests for comment immediately. The complaint was filed in San Jose, California, federal court. It followed an investigation by the state’s civil rights regulator, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, into Google’s treatment of Black female employees and possible workplace discrimination.
Curley stated that she was hired by Google in 2014 to develop an outreach program for historically Black colleges. She claimed that her hiring was a “marketing ploy,” as supervisors began disparaging her work, stereotyping her as an “angry” Black woman, and overlooking her for promotions.
Curley stated that she was terminated by the Alphabet unit in September 2020 after she and her colleagues began developing a list of desired reforms. “While Google claims to be committed to diversity, they were actually undervaluing, underpaying, and mistreating their Black employees,” Curley’s attorney Ben Crump stated in a statement.
Crump is a civil rights attorney who also represented George Floyd’s family following his May 2020 assassination by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Curley’s lawsuit seeks to recoup compensatory and punitive damages, as well as lost wages, for current and former Black Google employees, as well as to reinstate them to their proper positions and seniority.