Google Engineer Ends Discrimination Lawsuit

The well-publicized discrimination lawsuit filed by a conservative Google engineer was dropped. The suit was high profile, and it shook Silicon Valley with discrimination allegations against Google. 

Did Google Discriminate Against Politically Conservative Workers? 

In the high-profile discrimination lawsuit, the plaintiff, a former Google engineer named James Damore, claimed that the company discriminated against conservative workers and that his allegations of discrimination ended in dismissal. After Damore filed the discrimination lawsuit, three other men joined the suit against Alphabet, Google’s parent company. In Spring 2020, the plaintiffs asked California’s Santa Clara Superior Court to dismiss the lawsuit, and Google joined their request. 

The Plaintiff’s Original Discrimination Allegations: 

The Plaintiff, Damore, initially claimed that Google supported a politically correct monoculture – maintaining it by shaming any dissenting employees into silence. Damore put his thoughts down in writing and issued it as a memo in 2017. That same year, after Damore wrote the memo, Google fired the conservative engineer. 

The Lawsuit Is Over, But It Already Caused Change: 

While the lawsuit is not proceeding, the case already resulted in change. As a result of this discrimination lawsuit, Google changed some of its workplace policies to address concerns raised in the suit. For instance, previously, Google banned workers from discussing working conditions at work. As a result of a settlement Google reached with the National Labor Relations board when addressing some workplace policies one of the plaintiffs complained about, the ban on discussing workplace conditions was lifted. This positive change is felt not only by the plaintiffs in the case, but by all Google employees. 

The Case if Affecting More Than Just Google: 

Due to the lawsuit, other Fortune 100 companies are changing workplace policies to avoid similar allegations based on the mistreatment of workers. Changes include additional human resources training, better human resources policies, and more. Positive changes have been implemented in various Silicon Valley corporations due to the Damore discrimination suit. 

If you need to file a discrimination lawsuit or if you need to discuss other employment law violations, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik DeBlouw LLP. Experienced employment law attorneys are ready to assist you in any one of various law firm offices located in San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Riverside, and Chicago.