Racial discrimination lawsuit filed against Google on behalf of minority employees

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (KGO) -- A lawsuit has been filed against Google that alleges a pattern of racial discrimination against Black and minority employees.

The lawsuit alleges April Curley, who is Black, was hired to an entry-level position, although she held a Master's degree and five years of experience. Curley's job focused on increasing the company's diversity by recruiting potential employees from historically Black colleges and universities. Curley claims that the company's campaign to generate diversity was actually a public relations move. Instead, she says she experienced discrimination and hostility based on her race.

"I felt compelled to be vocal about the racist behaviors, policies, and practices that are deeply seeded in the problematic layers of Google's diversity recruitment efforts and the treatment of Black Googlers," said Curley.

Curley worked at Google for six years. She says she left her home in Baltimore to become a diversity recruiter for the tech giant.

In that time, she says she was able to recruit more than 500 black students who worked for the company.

Despite her performance, she was says she was wrongfully terminated in September of 2020

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"April Curley was an exceptional employee at Google. She was hired to a position well below her qualifications and was consistently wrongfully passed over for promotions," attorney Ben Crump said. "While Google claims that they were looking to increase diversity, they were actually undervaluing, underpaying, and mistreating their Black employees, leading to high turnover. We will not stop until we get justice for Curley and other Black employees at Google, and until we see real change in this company's culture."

Another former Google employee, Chloe Sledd, made allegations of sexual and racial harassment while she was employed with the company.

"My first few months at Google were nothing like I imagined they would be, almost immediately it was a nightmare. A white male on my department floor began to sexually harass me."

Chloe said that when she went to Google's human resources department about the alleged harassment they accused her of lying and never got back to her. She said the white male was allowed to keep his job and was not disciplined.

After that and retaliation she says she faced after speaking about race issues, Sledd says she was bullied into resigning.

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"It was clear to me they wanted me out and I didn't realize what my rights were and they took advantage of that."

Crump and attorneys say they're now working to make it a class action suit.

In part, the lawsuit is looking for the employees to be reinstated to their positions and awarded the value of the compensation and benefits they lost and will lose in the future.

"Google is a Fortune 10 company and with this lawsuit, we are telling Google it's not about profits, it's also about people," said Crump.

ABC7 reached out to Google for a response to the lawsuit and has not heard back.

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