Google has a history of elevating men at the cost of women
In early 2019, Google shareholders sued the company over their mismanagement of sexual harassment cases. Multiple women had accused a few high-ranking Google employees of sexual harassment. Their stories were credible and contained hard evidence. Google, rather than fire those employees, protected them at the cost of the women reporting the misbehavior. In fact, in the case of Andy Rubin, a serial abuser, Google gave Rubin a severance package worth $240 million, with $90 million in cash. Google covered up his crimes. As a result, Rubin was able to found another company, Essential, which he also ran into the ground, possibly in part thanks to news of his sexual abuse becoming public knowledge.
Google harassed and pushed out the whistle blowers who made their sexist and harmful polices come to light. Since then, over 20,000 Google employees, from all over the world, have protested Google’s unbelievable misogynistic and pro-sexual harassment stance. The company has been rife with misogyny, and has a habit of retaliating against the employees who come forward about problems. With its reputation on the line, shareholders finally stepped in. They sued Google.
Now they’ve won. Google settled with shareholders, and things will have to change at the company if they’re going to hold up their side of the bargain.
Who knows? Maybe Google will finally become a place where women can comfortably work.
In This Article:
A Year of Striking Back
Photo: Noah Berger/AP Photo
Google spent the last year getting even with the women who organized protests and walkouts. One by one, they left the company, all citing retaliation. Of course, direct retaliation would be illegal, so they were far more creative about it. Google went after their projects and promotions, holding the women who came forward back. Google’s retaliation sparked more protests, but it had the desired effect eventually. Employees have largely stopped speaking out. Outside of retaliation, Google did make a few promises. They ended forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases. It was something, but only a small part of Google’s problems. Protesters wanted Facebook to do more. Their shareholders did as well.
A Shareholder’s Lawsuit
Initially, the shareholder lawsuit brought forward by James Martin had a few demands. He wanted abusers like Andy Rubin to repay their severances to Google. Rubin’s severance alone was $90 million, a small fortune, but a drop in the ocean for Google. This was about sending a message to abusers that they didn’t get away with their crimes just because Google initially allowed them to.
The lawsuit looked for financial compensation, reform, the end of non-disclosure agreements that keep victims from coming forward, and give more power to the shareholders to make large decisions. Shareholders would elect new members to Google’s board to keep the company in line. The idea here is that Google’s current executives shaped Google’s culture, they can’t fix it on their own.
Google Settles Lawsuit
Google hopes their settlement can become a standard in the industry. However, we’ve seen many of these measures before, and they already are standard at many businesses. There is a unique opportunity here though. A company like Google—with tens of thousands of employees—could influence an entire industry. But are they doing enough?
A New Team
Part of the settlement involves a $310 million investment in diversity at Google. However, this investment will be doled out over 10 years. That’s just $31 million a year. Sounds like a lot, right? However, when you consider that it’s just 2% of Google’s $160.74 billion in profits in 2019, and that their profits have grown by about $25 billion each year, it’ll become a shrinking part of Google’s expenditure.
Furthermore, in just one year, Google was willing to give $90 million, just under three times their annual contribution, to a sexual abuser. Rubin’s total severance package totaled $240 million. $310 million isn’t much for Google, and it’s nothing compared to what they’ve given sexual abusers at the company. $310 million also doesn’t guarantee change. Intel also made a similar $300 million pledge for diversity in 2015. Five years later, and they’ve only increased their female work force by less than 2%.
Part of that $310 million investment will go towards a new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team. The Chief Diversity Officer will head up this new council, but they won’t be the only person responsible for the outcome of Google’s diversity initiatives. Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai will join their global affairs chief, Kent Walker, and the Senior Vice President of core engineering Jen Fitzpatrick. These people will meet at least once a quarter to decide on how to spend their diversity investment, and how to improve programs at Google.
The DEI team will also investigate the claims of retaliation numerous ex-Google employees have made. They’ll also check in with victims of abuse or harassment at Google at least once every six months for two years. They’ll also create a rapid response team to deal with accusations quickly.
New Policies
Employees walking out of Google’s campus in California. Photo: Mason Trinca/Getty Images
Google’s introducing over 80 changes to their company policies. Most are small, made to close loopholes that executives used in the past to get away with workplace harassment. The company will also end the use of NDAs to silence victims of harassment and discrimination. Anyone under investigation or the subject of a lawsuit will not be able to collect severance anymore, ending the possibility of executives walking off with millions of dollars to start other companies. Finally, they’ll also ban workplace romances between managers and subordinates. This won’t mean anyone will have to break up, mostly it’ll just involve restructuring so a person doesn’t report to their significant other.
What’s Missing
The biggest things I see missing here include ways to alter existing behavior. Complaints of misogyny need to be dealt with quickly and harshly. Google needs to educate employees and quickly fire, demote, or otherwise punish employees found to be making racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise discriminatory remarks. They need to work aggressively to curb microaggressions and discriminatory behavior. Companies like Google must document where ideas come from in meetings and question managers who take ideas that female employees brought up but were ignored until a male coworker brought the same idea up. Google needs to track these interactions extensively to prevent workplace harassment and discrimination. They’re simply not making that investment.
It’s possible that Google’s measures will improve conditions at the company, but without trying to change the toxic behavior of its workforce, and by dealing with problems only once they’ve already happened, Google’s not going to make any large motions towards progress. Maybe in a few years Google will realize that this simply isn’t enough.
A Universal Problem
Really, this is a problem in every industry where the gender balance isn’t 50/50 in leadership. Can you guess what industry that is? All of them. However, tech is exceptionally bad. You have a predominantly male workforce, almost entirely male leadership team (especially in engineering), and an increased chance of “incel” or misogynistic behavior. Let’s face it, software engineering was a safe haven for may socially awkward teenagers, myself included. Those people can sometimes become bitter or resentful, especially in the case of men’s opinions of women. Just look at James Damore’s screed at Google for the perfect example of that.
Tech is the perfect storm of bad behavior: a bad environment coupled with a ton of money. Add in Non-Disclosure/Disparage Agreements, which silence people who would otherwise go public about the discriminatory practices of their employer, and there’s no accountability.
Even here, Google, guilty of giving a serial sexual abuser millions, is getting the tiniest of slaps on the wrist. Google’s settlement doesn’t even include punitive damages or restitution for those harmed by Google’s policies. Google rewards many sexual abusers at the company, all with very public documentation. Yet even when they have to settle a lawsuit, they’re slow to improve.
Refactor Everything
Tech needs to be torn up and rebuilt. It permits sexism and racism to run rampant. We need education and we need to take infractions seriously. Diversity education programs only work when the punishments for breaking those rules includes immediate termination. We need to eliminate forced arbitration and non-disclosure/disparage agreements. Tech companies shouldn’t get the unique ability to silence their workers so they can’t sue them or bring their crimes to the press. Nothing will get better in tech until we allow victims to come forward.
This settlement will change very little at Google. However, it may help change some ideas around NDA’s in the industry. This was a small victory. Many women lost their jobs at Google, and tech largely hasn’t changed. Still, it was a small step towards improving tech for everyone.