Google Settles Race Discrimination Lawsuit For $50m

Google has agreed to pay $50 million (£37.5m) to settle accusations of race discrimination in a proposed class-action lawsuit by Black workers who said the company pushed them into dead-end jobs and denied them opportunities for advancement.

The preliminary settlement, filed late last week in the US District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland, would cover more than 4,000 Google employees in California and New York. It requires a judge’s approval.

Plaintiffs said the tech giant has a “racially biased corporate culture” where Blacks are paid less and receive downgraded performance ratings.

Not ‘Googly’ enough

Black staff comprised only 4.4 percent of Google’s workforce and 3 percent of its leadership in 2021, according to the complaint.

Hiring managers indicated Black candidates were not “Googly” enough and interviewers allegedly asked “level-inappropriate questions” to harm their prospects, said plaintiff April Curley, hired as an outreach specialist to Black college students, her complaint said.

She claimed she was stereotyped as an “angry” Black woman and was fired in 2020 after six years after she “vocally opposed and called for reform of the barriers and double standards” Google imposed on Black staff and applicants.

Google denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle, and said it fully complied with all applicable laws.

The case began in March 2022 after California regulators began investigating Google’s treatment of Black female employees.

The parties said in a joint filing that the settlement agreement provides “substantial monetary relief” as well as “meaningful non-monetary relief”.

Pay differences

The parties said attorneys would seek fees of up to 25 percent of the settlement fund, as well as service awards of up to $50,000 for each of the plaintiffs representing the class.

The legal deal includes a commitment by Google to continue to analyse pay to identify unexplained differences based on race and a reaffirmation of its agreement to not ask for or base compensation decisions on salary histories of applicants, the motion said.

Google also agreed not to require employees to enter into mandatory arbitration agreements for employment-related disputes or enforce existing agreements through August 2026.

Earlier last week the plaintiffs’ lawyers dismissed related claims brought on behalf of job applicants, citing evidence they had gathered and the tech company’s “reasoned arguments”.