YouTube has been hit with a lawsuit alleging that it stopped employing males of white and Asian descent in 2017 because they did not help the company reach its desired diversity quotas.
The civil suit was filed by a white male, Arne Wilberg, who was employed by Google for nine years, four of which were spent as a recruiter at YouTube, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The suit claims that quotas were set for hiring minorities.
As iTWire has reported, Google has a number of suits pending against it:
- one by software engineer Loretta Lee alleging sexual harassment, and gender discrimination;
- a second by engineer James Damore who was fired for writing a screed, that was meant for internal consumption but which went public, alleging the gender gap in tech jobs was due to biological factors;
- a third by engineer Tim Chevalier who claims the company fired him over posting, on internal message boards, what he claimed was politically liberal content; and
- a fourth by three former women employees — Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease and Kelli Wisuri — who filed a class-action lawsuit, alleging they were paid less than their male counterparts who had similar roles.
Wilberg's lawsuit alleged that YouTube recruiters had received instructions to cancel interviews set up for prospective hires who were not female, black or Hispanic and to remove all applications from those who did not fit the same categories.
{loadposition sam08}Google told the WSJ in a statement that it would defend itself vigorously against the claims. A spokeswoman was quoted as saying: “We have a clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity.
“At the same time, we unapologetically try to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates for open roles, as this helps us hire the best people, improve our culture, and build better products.”
Wilberg's suit was filed in January in the San Mateo County Superior Court in California. It claims he was discriminated against because of his sex and his race and fired when he complained about the alleged discrimination.
He alleges that he had contacted a number of managers at YouTube about the prevalent hiring practices, and then took his plaints to Google managers, before he was shown the door in November 2017.