{"id":4706,"date":"2016-10-14T12:02:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T16:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=4706"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:59","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:59","slug":"deja-vu-google-sued-over-age-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/deja-vu-google-sued-over-age-discrimination\/","title":{"rendered":"D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu: Google Sued for Age Discrimination (Again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2007, a former Google executive, Brian Reid, was discharged from Google. Shortly afterwards, Reid filed a lawsuit claiming that he was discriminated based on his age. Reid cited being called an \u201cold man,\u201d an \u201cold-fuddy duddy,\u201d and being told that his ideas were \u201ctoo old to matter.”<\/a><\/span> Ultimately, the case was settled outside of court.
\nFast-forward to April of 2015, once again Google was sued\u2014this time by a 64-year-old job candidate\u2014for age discrimination.\u00a0 Despite being told that Google was \u201c\u2019embarking on its largest recruiting \/ hiring campaign in its history,\u2019 and \u2018[he] would be a great candidate to . . . work at Google,\u2019\u201d<\/a> <\/span>Robert Heath did not receive the job.\u00a0 Additionally, the lawsuit noted that \u201cGoogle had a median age of 29.\u201d<\/a><\/span> These facts, combined with Heath\u2019s extensive experience \u201cat IBM, Compaq, and General Dynamics\u201d<\/a><\/span> made Heath believe that Google was discriminating against him based on his age and filed a lawsuit.
\nOnce more, Google has been sued for age discrimination. Earlier this week, Google was sued by \u201ctwo job applicants, both over the age of 40, who interviewed but weren\u2019t offered jobs.\u201d<\/a><\/span> The \u201cjudge ruled that other software engineers over age 40 who interviewed with the company but didn\u2019t get hired can step forward and join the lawsuit.\u201d<\/a><\/span> More specifically, the people who can come forward are those \u201cwho \u2018interviewed in person with Google for a software engineer, site reliability engineer, or systems engineer position when they were 40 years old or older, and received notice on or after August 28, 2014, that they were refused employment.\u201d
\nA Google spokesperson asserted \u201c[Google has] strong policies against discrimination on any unlawful basis, including age.\u201d<\/a><\/span> \u00a0The judge believed that even though Google does indeed have anti-discrimination policies\u2014they are not a shield, \u201cparticularly in light of the evidence and allegations presented here.\u201d Moreover, the judge noted that \u201cmost, if not all, companies are well versed in anti-discrimination and make great efforts to ensure their written policies comply with anti-discrimination law.\u201d
\nAge is not just an \u201cissue\u201d (more on this below) at Google. \u00a0While the median age of the U.S. worker is 42<\/a><\/span>, as mentioned earlier, the median age at Google is 29-years-old<\/a><\/span>. The median age is not much higher at other prominent tech companies. Facebook, for example, has an even lower median age of 28<\/a><\/span>. Amazon and Apple, on the other hand, have higher median ages of 31<\/a><\/span>. The lowest median age for a tech company was surprisingly AOL with a median age 27<\/a><\/span> (a commenter on the report comically said, \u201cAnd the winner of \u2018Company with the Greatest Age Disparity Between Workers and Customers\u2019 goes to . . . [AOL].\u201d)<\/a><\/span> Evidently, the problem is not just with Google, who is not even the worst offender of the many prominent tech companies in America.
\nReasonable minds can, and in fact do, differ regarding whether the low median age in the tech industry is in fact an issue. \u201cFrom 2008 through [2015], [Silicon] Valley\u2019s 150 biggest tech companies faced 226 complaints of age discrimination filed with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, 28 percent more than complaints of racial bias and 9 percent more than those of gender bias.\u201d<\/a> <\/span>Michael Welch, an employment lawyer, noted that \u201ctech companies are singularly uninterested in and even distrustful of long r\u00e9sum\u00e9s.\u201d<\/a><\/span> This distaste has led many older prospective employees to go to different lengths, sometimes drastic, to make themselves \u201cseem younger as they try to win over potential bosses younger than their kids.\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

There are reports of employees even going as far as getting plastic surgery in order to appear younger.<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, the low median ages is not without purpose in some minds. For example, \u201cMark Zuckerberg famously summed up the Valley ethos at age 22, when he told a Stanford audience, \u2018Younger people are just smarter.\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/span> Moreover, Jonathan Nelson, the CEO of Silicon Valley social network Hackers\/Founders, expressed, \u201c\u2019If you\u2019ve worked at a large company for 10 years and get laid off, chances are your skills are six generations behind.\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/span> Echoing a similar sentiment, Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, explained that \u201cin the tech world, gray hair and experience are really overrated.\u201d<\/a><\/span> Overrated or not, the tech industry appears to have a bias for a younger workforce.
\nSince the suit is in early stages, it is hard to say what will end up happening. This is not Google\u2019s first time being sued for age discrimination, and based on the number of similar suits that other tech companies face, I am sure it will not be the last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2007, a former Google executive, Brian Reid, was discharged from Google. Shortly afterwards, Reid filed a lawsuit claiming that he was discriminated based on his age. Reid cited being called an \u201cold man,\u201d an \u201cold-fuddy duddy,\u201d and being told that his ideas were \u201ctoo old to matter.” Ultimately, the case was settled outside of …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7159,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706\/revisions\/7159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}