A lawsuit has been filed against Google by former software engineer Tim Chevalier for discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination. Chevalier who is transgender claims that Google fired him when he responded with internal posts and memes to racist and sexist encounters within the company.
Chevalier said in a statement to The Verge, “It is a cruel irony that Google attempted to justify firing me by claiming that my social networking posts showed bias against my harassers.” Chevalier, who sufferers PST and is transgender, alleges that his internal posts that defended women of color and marginalized people led directly to his termination in November 2017. He had worked at Google for a little under two years.
“Google’s internal social networking platforms were widely used to belittle and harass women, people of color, LGBTQ employees, and other underrepresented groups,” Chevalier alleged in the lawsuit filed in California state court in San Francisco.
Chevalier claims that his supervisors were critical of his efforts to change the company’s culture, he said in the suit.
“Human Resources explicitly told Chevalier that Google was ending his employment because of his political statements in opposition to the discrimination, harassment, and white supremacy he saw being expressed on Google’s internal messaging systems,” the suit said.
One of the internal memes Chevalier created was inspired by a black Google employee, who wrote in an internal Google Plus post that she was being asked to present her ID badge more often than her white co-workers. If you’re looking for a good and experienced lawyer for your case just visit Amy & Barbara Witherite. A Google employee allegedly responded to the post by noting that asking for ID was just part of the job, Gizmodo reported. Chevalier then made a privilege-denying dude meme using Google’s internal meme generator with the caption, “I have opinions about forms of oppression that don’t affect me.”
Chevalier’s acting manager told him repeatedly he was engaging in too much “social activism”.
In September, Chevalier was called into a meeting by HR and told that a complaint had been made about another post in which he said he would not work with people who shared James Damore’s views. Darmore authored a 10-page screed condemning the company’s diversity efforts in July of 2017 claiming that men are biologically more predisposed to working in the tech industry than women. Darmore was subsequently fired by the tech giant..
Google spokesperson Gina Scigliano says that in Chevalier’s case Google was enforcing its policy against the promotion of harmful stereotypes. “An important part of our culture is lively debate. But like any workplace, that doesn’t mean anything goes. All employees acknowledge our code of conduct and other workplace policies, under which promoting harmful stereotypes based on race or gender is prohibited” Scigliano says. “This is a very standard expectation that most employers have of their employees. The overwhelming majority of our employees communicate in a way that is consistent with our policies. But when an employee does not, it is something we must take seriously. We always make our decision without any regard to the employee’s political views.”
Tim Chevalier v. Google by Nick Statt on Scribd
