In January, James Damore, the engineer who was fired after writing a screed against Google’s diversity efforts, filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination against white people, men, and political conservatives. Then Arne Wilberg, a former technical recruiter in Google’s YouTube unit, filed suit1, alleging that YouTube illegally used quotas as recently as last year in an attempt to hire more black, Latinx, and female engineers. Exhibits in the complaint include a screenshot of an internal document where recruiters tracked diversity goals for women and minorities, as well as two emails where a hiring manager instructed the recruiting team to “only consider” candidates from “historically underrepresented groups.” Wilberg's suit was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Wilberg, who worked as a Google recruiter for seven years, claims that he was retaliated against and wrongfully fired for complaining that these practices discriminated against white and Asian men. Black and Hispanic engineers, the racial groups Wilberg claims were unfairly favored by YouTube, together account for only 4 percent of Google’s technical workforce.
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The hiring practices challenged in the lawsuit fall into a controversial area of labor law, where setting goals to diversify is acceptable, but setting quotas is not. Both federal and California anti-discrimination laws prohibit employers from making hiring decisions based on race or gender.
