Got any evidence for that? Is Google in the habit of paying out giant HR-related settlements for something other than protecting good ol' boys like Andy Rubin?
As another commenter pointed out elsewhere, Google recently paid out a settlement claiming that it discriminated against Asians. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20210201 This settlement claims they favored Asians, but Google paid it out too!
So, yes, it appears Google is in the habit of paying out contradictory settlements rather than litigating them.
One thing I will note is that both of these can be true. Google is a huge company run by a lot of people and unless the specific claims are contradictory there's nothing stopping Google from doing both. It's not like we can expect it to be run with any consistent ideology
Getting 5 people to agree on one thing is so hard companies have Project Managers, doesn't seem unlikely that the left hand doesn't speak to the right when you get to Google scale.
> Got any evidence for that? Is Google in the habit of paying out giant HR-related settlements for something other than protecting good ol' boys like Andy Rubin?
The state of US case law -- IANAL, this is a layman's understanding -- is that plaintiffs only have to show that there exists "disparate impact," which is to say that outcomes were not exactly the same for Asians/whites and blacks.
Two things can be true: 1) Google did not intend to discriminate, did not institute any policy designed to discriminate, did not in actual fact discriminate against non-Asian/white employees; and 2) they could still be held liable for hiring results that look like discrimination in a single-variable analysis.
So, yes, I think there are indeed situations in which they'd pay out settlements knowing full well they've done nothing morally or ethically dubious.
It's not exactly beyond the realm of possibility that individual managers at Google had discriminatory promotion practices. Google picks up the legal tab for their alleged malfeasance, because they empower managers to make those decisions.
If it is so easy to squeeze some cash out of a major company, I'd imagine Google, Apple and many others in California would be cutting checks left and right to dodge lawsuits alleging violations of the state's Equal Pay Act, which saw its last major update in 2018, enacted into law in Jan 2019.[1]
Also NAL but I don't think you're correct about this.
First: the standard isn't relevant to a nuisance suit, since by definition you don't expect to win a nuisance suit anyway.
But setting that aside, disparate impact requires a significant difference in outcome and can be defended against by showing that the standards are relevant to job performance ("business necessity"). That's true for both the federal Civil Rights Act and the California Equal Pay Act (which is what this suit was brought under). So a "single variable analysis" isn't the end of the story, and employers can (and often do) provide statistical arguments that their policies satisfy business necessity.
I'd suggest looking up the case (Griggs v. Duke Power Co.) that established the disparate impact standard in the first place. TLDR, a company that had explicitly discriminatory Jim Crow-era policies banning black employees from certain departments adopted new requirements on the day the Civil Rights Act went into effect. Those requirements hadn't been in place before, Duke Power could not show any actual connection with job performance, and white employees were two to ten times more likely to satisfy them. A unanimous court (which, as a fun trivia fact, included an open former member of the Klan!) said nope, can't do that.
The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye".
Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google:
* There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me.
* During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea". I was tapped on the shoulder by the contractor-teacher-person and asked to move aside and let the group do the very same thing without me.
* Nonwhite employees in my org also got a special mentor who helped them get a leg-up in the company. Some employees were whisked-away from their work responsibilities to go on little field trips with other teams. A few of these people were totally inept technically at their job and I saw them convert into better jobs. It must have been nice.
I'm pretty liberal, but this corpo-liberalism that somehow thinks an eye-for-an-eye to people living in 2025 is insane to me. It might even burn someone so much it changes their politics if they're whimsical.
That's very different from Google when I was there (both before and after the Damore memo).
1. There were ERGs for old people, young people, people who brought dogs to work, Irish people, Jewish people, etc. I can't imagine why they would say you couldn't create one for the group you wanted.
2. One thing hot-shot programmers fresh out of college need to learn is that while their opinion is valued, they need to listen to other people on the team as they may have important points as well. While it's nice to show initiative, that's L3-L4 thinking. To get to L5 or higher, you need to be able to listen, strategize, and drive consensus. All of those fuzzy things that you became a software engineer to avoid. Because at the end of the day, no one is particularly interested in how clever you are, they're interested in what you can get done. And you can get a heck of a lot more done through working with other people, even if they aren't quite as clever as you. After all, quantity has a quality all its own.
3. Every new employee gets assigned a mentor (at least at the office I was at). I'm not sure how this would differ from the "special" mentor you're talking about, but maybe you can inform me. Though with the level of ego reflected in your post, I'm not sure you would have benefited from a mentor, special or otherwise.
4. Some people that are hired are not as good, technically, as others. I'm aware of confirmation bias, so seeing a few less technically capable employees that happen not to be white doesn't surprise me. And when I do the math, assigning scores to previous co-workers and talking it up, I don't actually see a statistically significant difference in the capabilities based on race (though it does lean a bit towards white males being less capable).
But maybe my Google office wasn't representative, as we weren't one of the main ones.
>There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me.
Imagine moving to say, Switzerland, to work for a massive corporation. 90% of the employees are Swiss. The other 10% come from a smattering of other countries from around the world. To help those employees acclimate to a new culture and find support, the company sponsors country-based ERGs.
Of course, there is no Swiss ERG, as it's the "default", because the entire company is essentially a Swiss ERG. But, the company encourages its Swiss employees to join the others as a show of support and cultural exchange.
If you had attended one of those groups, you might have found yourself feeling extraordinarily welcome, and even learned a few things about your fellow employees.
>A few of these people were totally inept technically at their job and I saw them convert into better jobs. It must have been nice.
If "totally inept" people are being promoted with any frequency, then that's a problem for any company. I think we have all seen this occasionally but, in my experience, it has very little to do with race (or other identity) and more to do with the Peter Principle and the fact that hiring and HR management is notoriously hard to get right.
I'm not suggesting anything about the earnestness of your observations, but you should be aware that assuming every non-white person you see at a company is the beneficiary of preferential treatment is a bit of a canard. And the idea that a disproportionate number of those are inept is yet another.
As such, whimsical people might draw rather nasty conclusions from your statements, that are other than what you intended.
If Swiss and white were the same thing, that would make a lot of sense. On the other hand if you were a Ukrainian refugee or something, learning Swiss-German as a second language and struggling to integrate into the company's Swiss culture, then it might feel extra-alienating if the company suggests you could join the Asian or Indian employee support groups to help you bridge the culture gap.
OTOH, for the same reason, skin-color-based groups don't really make sense to begin with.
>If Swiss and white were the same thing, that would make a lot of sense
We all have multiple identities. We relate to those identities and others relate to us by those identities—at times, unfortunately. So, you can substitute any identity here, and it still makes sense.
>it might feel extra-alienating if the company suggests you could join the Asian or Indian employee support groups
Not necessarily. There's certainly some overlap in experience, as they are all working to integrate into the same culture.
What you may be missing here is that it's not strictly about which specific group, but also about the fact that the group is not the majority / "culture-defining group".
>OTOH, for the same reason, skin-color-based groups don't really make sense to begin with.
Oh, if only they didn't, my friend. What a world this would be. It's worth noting that it's generally not those "skin-colors" who made these groups necessary. Part of it is just the complicated tribalism of humans. And, yes, another part of it is that some people have taken advantage of that tribalism.
ERG groups provide mentorship and support. The assumption that all white people, males or in this case Swiss don’t need support or get it automatically is plain wrong.
Yes, and Google offers a wide range of mentorship/support programs, from those for community college students to
upskilling to new hires to tailored programs and more.
>The assumption that all white people, males or in this case Swiss don’t need support
I don't think anyone assumes that. I certainly don't. I'm sure Google provides other means of support to its employees, and ERGs represent just one approach, which address specific needs for specific employees.
What you have to understand is that people are tribal and that can have effects on "outgroups" in any given context. If we're out at lunch and all but one of us is in the same frat, we may unintentionally exclude that person. It's not necessarily intentional or malicious. That's obviously a simplification, but you can extrapolate.
So, ERGs aren't meant to be punitive or exclusionary. In fact, according to OP, Google encouraged all employees to join whichever groups interested them.
But again, why call out specific groups by gender or race and not call out others? Do people really think that a white guy from some poor area has more privilege and needs less support than some person from {insert oppressed group here} whose family is highly educated?
>But again, why call out specific groups by gender or race and not call out others?
History. There is an undeniable legacy of gender and race-based discrimination. This discrimination was absolutely laser-focused on gender and race, so is it fairer to simply ignore this and call it a wash?
For instance, some estimates of the value of free labor provided by slaves in the U.S. are upwards of $100 trillion, with an amplification effect (including an inverse one), compounding over generations.
>Do people really think that a white guy from some poor area has more privilege...
No. There are programs for people in rural areas, poorer areas, etc. To the extent that these are inadequate, they should also be addressed.
But, it's not just about economics. It's also about culture, socialization, etc.
Not surprising. There are different ways to view identity, and none of us are any one thing. Your observation underscores my point that providing support along the lines of identity can be completely benign sans a political context.
That said, feel free to substitute a more homogenous country if that helps to clarify my point.
The point is offering development resources based on race, an immutable characteristic, is deeply unsettling to a lot of people. (I’m not white, for what it’s worth.)
>offering development resources based on race, an immutable characteristic, is deeply unsettling to a lot of people.
I understand, but I'm trying to provide a point of view that might make it less unsettling. Otherwise, we're just kind of saying that people find it unsettling, so it must be wrong (BTW, we also can't overlook that there are people who want to make it more unsettling, for reasons).
Anyway, it really comes down to backing up a little to consider why race became a factor. Else, if we simply start the clock at the inception of these groups, then I suppose it should be unsettling.
Interestingly, there are other immutable characteristics that do not trigger that unsettledness. If nothing else, this gives us reason to question why this particular characteristic became so charged.
I'm assuming that's a good example, because I've yet to see an outcry around disabled people getting unfair advantages.
But, it's really down to any group that has not been socially or politically charged. So, I'd also say things like women's groups, given their historic underrepresentation in tech. However, that's also become charged recently.
So, what we have is this thing of defining what's OK by how people react to it or, maybe more accurately, how people are encouraged to react. That seems potentially unhealthy and infinitely abusable.
>Because it's been a tool of social division.
Exactly. But, it's not just division in the sense of splitting people in half. There's also a historic inequity that corresponds with one side.
Some make the argument that you can't heal division by "dividing further". But, I think it's a little unfair to simply not acknowledge those who have been negatively impacted. The other part is that the existence of a group doesn't have to be divisive in itself. In fact, seeking to understand and support them can be quite the opposite.
If Whites want to make an ERG, why can't they? What is special about Whites that they must be prevented from doing the thing that literally all others have done?
Google doesn't exist in a vacuum, but in a broader culture (e.g. America). If you're coming from an Asian country, you might still feel alienated or simply want to connect with people who intrinsically understand your culture.
That said, the Asian makeup of Google has increased significantly over the years. I wonder how that has impacted the participation rate in its ERG versus when it was originally established.
>* What is special about Whites that they must be prevented from doing the thing that literally all others have done?*
The dominant culture is essentially the "default" and is somewhat "self-reinforcing", so generally has no need of an identity-based support group. Thus, when the dominant culture does establish an identity-based group, it tends to take on a different meaning.
> The dominant culture is essentially the "default" and is somewhat "self-reinforcing", so generally has no need of an identity-based support group. Thus, when the dominant culture does establish an identity-based group, it tends to take on a different meaning.
You're being so indirect we're forced to guess at what you mean. Can you please say clearly why you think White must be actually prevented from doing this, when all other groups have already done so?
Not why you think they don't need one - why do you think they must be prevented, even if some of them want to start one?
I get plenty of that elsewhere. Do you have issues finding support, networking events, and mentorship programs?
ERGs specifically tend to group those generic, open-to-all programs together and add another layer of `navigating the workplace as [insert ERG demographic]` that doesn't really make sense if you insert "white man".
How about an ERG for people who need support? When I started working I had no idea how things work and nobody told me. I didn't even know that things like mentorship exist. I had been taught by my parents that you go to work and do what you are told to do.
>What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it?
The exact same thing as anyone of any other group of course.
To be clear, Whites are a minority at Google. They are also not even the largest group. (Not that this should matter - all groups have the right to exist).
Well, most other groups have had a rough go at it throughout recent history, and often have to approach the workplace differently because it takes a long time to reverse some of our previous mistakes.
We considered many black folks property until 1865, and we had segregation of some schools in the 1960s. We didn't let women vote until 1920. We put Japanese people in internment camps until 1946. Gay folks couldn't marry in all states until 2015. Do I have to list more?
If you don't think this kind of stuff leaks into the workplace, then I don't think you're paying attention.
> We put Japanese people in internment camps until 1946
And now they are economically ahead of the average American. Universities actually discriminate against them by their malevolent definition of "fairness" where success is a punishable offense. People are where they are because of what they do today, not what happened to their ancestors in the past.
That doesn't explain why ERG's exist for that, and it doesn't explain why they are dismissive of what people who are white && and not women encounter in life or as an employee, seeking resources
Why are you invalidating their experience, its look like you have let something else leak into the workplace under an amusingly ironic interpretation of empathy
Let's write it again in a different way: Nothing about the name "Employee Resource Group" suggests that "state-sanctioned disenfranchisement at some point in the country's history" is the only reason or prerequisite for an employee seeking resources
Looks like an another race and ethnicity settlement is brewing
There are plenty of allyship opportunities at big companies. Or at least, there were. I don't really know the status of some companies after the current political environment started changing things.
Focusing on "White Allies" is a bit strange, though. Anyone not directly in a given group can be allies.
Except people on Blind brag about doing this under the domains they control.
I wouldn't interpret this as a top-level policy, just some individuals in some hiring and pay/leveling decisions with little accountability. This does mean they represent Google though, and one remedy for that is a settlement by the corporate entity.
Ideally shareholders would become interested in rooting this out and creating better, less expensive, accountability.
It creates an environment where everyone (or some additional subset of everyone) feels they need to elevate their own in-group.
What's the effective difference between unofficial policy of discrimination and individual groups conducting discrimination en mass?
Thinking back to a unicorn I worked for we were unofficially told to favour women in hiring. We all thought it was a great idea at that time, but also I do remember a coworker saying how her group has been doing heavy favouring of women in hiring for years already before being told to do so.
I've observed orgs go from diverse to turn largely Indian or Chinese based upon who does the hiring, the only group that doesn't seem to do this is Americans of all ethnicities (Chinese american, indian american, white american etc). White americans seem like the ones having the least legal recourse. When these leaders move they pull these buddies into their new companies, and they often form cliques that operate using their groups culture and protect each other over company interests.
> Adams said the settlement came after Cantu’s lawyers agreed this month to exclude Black employees from the proposed class action, which Google had sought.
Does anyone familiar with the case know the context behind this?
In general, Google objected to the broadness of the class, which on initial filing covered all non-White employees. Specifically in regard to Black employees, they pointed out that some of the evidence presented suggested that Black employees actually earned less even than Latino and indigenous employees, so they might actually have opposing interests. There was also reference made to a different class action (Curley v. Google, in federal court) that would cover Black employees instead.
This got down to a pretty low level of details, not only specifically cutting the class down to "Hispanic, Latinx, Indigenous, Native American, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and/or Alaska Native" employees but also explicitly excluding anyone in any of those groups who identified as Black.
It appears to be because the person who filed the suit was mostly concerned with oppression of people of "Hispanic, Latino, Indigenous, Native American and other minority backgrounds."
The bigger issue really is that Google should start reviews of a lot of managerial decisions in this regard. If you've got courts agreeing with plaintiffs, then these people you've been hiring are pursuing their, um, "preferences", a little bit too openly. You have to take things back in hand.
I'm guessing the court made no statement either way if there was a settlement? A civil court's job in the USA is to try every possible means to help both sides to reach a settlement (or other disposition) without trial. Trial is an extraordinary remedy.
A court will never make a statement favoring either side in a settlement. A settlement means the case never went to trial, and therefore, the sides never presented their cases in full to the court, so such a statement would be completely out of line.
In my brief experience with litigation the only role the court has in helping both sides achieve a settlement is forcing the litigants to go through endless and expensive procedure until they both realize it's not worth it. Before trial, the court does little to indicate to you that it even knows you exist.
I've done a lot of litigation.. the last settlement I did the federal judge basically sat in her pajamas in front of her web cam all day flicking back and forth between plaintiff and defendant doing her best to talk through both sides of the arguments while trying to keep secret what the other side was telling her. She was very patient, despite how tiring and tedious the negotiations were. She was very actively engaged, though, bless her cotton socks.
By the same numbers "Latinx+" are actually over-represented at Google and white people underrepresented. Neither by a large amount though.
With how close the numbers actually are I wonder if the different biases of different HR people and hiring managers actually cancelled out pretty well.
Side rant. Cut the Latinx crap please, Latinos don't really feel represented by the force-fed "inclusive" name that straight up goes against their gendered languages. It's overriding the language to seem more inclusive in English
Just to be clear on this one: are you Latino? Why do you speak for them? I have latino friends who insist on that language, some who don't give a fuck, and latinx friends who own that jab at the patriarchal idea of forcing gender on genderless objects or groups.
Put another way: The NAACP didn't change their name, but if you called most black folk I know "colored" they'd punch you in the throat. Language is fluid and all that.
So again I ask: Why the generalization on how a whole mish mosh of people feel.
I probably agree much more with you on these issues in general than I do with the other poster, and there are so many bigger problems right now, but we don't need to speak for anyone here. We just listen to what's already been said.
Less than half of Hispanics have even heard the term "Latinx", and of those that have, an overwhelming majority (75%) say they'd rather you don't use it. This is true regardless of age, gender, race, education level, party affiliation, orientation/gender identity, and immigration status - you don't get a much clearer picture than that in a poll. The plurality, and usually majority, preferred term across all demographic slices was "Hispanic", which is also not gendered.
If we choose particular terminology, and ask others to do so as well, shouldn't it be with the clearly-expressed preferences of the people we're talking about in mind? To me, that seems like the most obviously-respectful path.
> Less than half of Hispanics have even heard the term "Latinx"
It doesn't help that it's unnatural to even pronounce.
> there are so many bigger problems right now
Indeed, I'm more worried about the loss of true freedom of speech and the impending sense of WW3 coming. Having HR mix up race and sexual identity in some select countries is a minor complaint.
Yes, and look at the stats that the sibling post shared. I'm talking from experience and obviously some generalisation from what I saw among a few separate groups of Latinos. I'm not making stuff up just to be offended on the internet.
> I have latino friends who insist on that language, some who don't give a fuck, and latinx friends who own that jab at the patriarchal idea of forcing gender on genderless objects or groups.
Yes, but the ratios I saw had a clear trend and everyone agreed that the X at the end was clearly made up and force-fed instead of borrowed from Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/French.
> I don’t use LatinX, but I don’t think it changes anything and it doesn’t bother me that other people do.
Surely it doesn't change anything for you, but I'm not complaining because absolutely no one got mad, people were furious, but unsure how to get angry at the Diversity stuff without getting cancelled.
On the one hand, this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish.
As we're not actually using real Spanish, such criticisms feel to me like objecting to the way Star Trek dares to boldly split infinitives that have never been split before on the basis that Latin (the language) didn't split them — Latin couldn't split infinitives because infinitives in Latin are single words, just as the -x suffix to denote -[o/a in this case but way more complex when you get to all the other gendered suffixes] doesn't make sense in Spanish.
(And now I'm wondering if anyone says "una hombra" and "un mujero" for trans people…)
This is mainly a comment about English speakers borrowing the word as an exonym, my grasp of the Spanish language itself is "tourist" at best.
> On the one hand, this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish.
I don't see many English words ending in X, so I doubt it's linguistically correct in English either.
Normally you just borrow the word as closely as possible, maybe trying to make it easier to pronounce (see any word the Japanese borrow from English), but here people that didn't speak Spanish, but apparently knew a little bit took over.
English corrupts a lot of stuff it borrows, the examples which come to mind are when people try to be fancy. See also "chai tea", the difference between beef and cow. Also corrupts itself spontaneously, what with all the "u"s in British English or how many "i"s there are in aluminium.
Ok, but this isn't a Portuguese/Spanish/French word that was borrowed into English that naturally got a final X because it suited English better.
I didn't say there are no words ending in X, but it isn't common and it's not a way to help borrow words from other languages, nor is the X also borrowed.
> this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish
That the linguistically correct in both English and Spanish (and other Latin-derivative languages) term “Latin” got passed over in favour of Latinx sort of speaks to the motivations of those who pushed it.
It’s not--it's still a neologism. But it’s grammatically conventional to both languages in a way LatinX is not. (The idea of neutering languages without a neuter tense is its own can if worms.)
If you read the complaint, the allegation is that controlling for performance evaluations, members of certain groups were preferred over others for promotion.
If group X on average performs better than group Y, then objective hiring will lead to more group X bring hired. Then group Y takes you to court for discrimination.
It really depends on what assumptions you are making, your basis of comparison, and how you measure performance.
Does X perform better than Y in general or within the community. Does hiring match national population, the applicant pool, or the top 1% of the applicant pool? How do you measure performance?
These topics are rarely fleshed out in any public corporate policy. All I know is my bonus depends on increasing the % of minority employees.
I don’t think it’s obvious that summary statistics will be helpful unless they’re particularly carefully done. Where do averages come from? If individual data points are biased in the same direction (that is, not noise that cancels out) then the group average will be too.
This isn’t something you can just assume when you see someone quoting statistics. It could be a garbage study.
Exactly. You can't just simply assume that job performance is statistically independent of various seemingly unrelated traits. If you suspect age discrimination, you also can't just assume that age is uncorrelated with performance. Or being short sighted, or even things like weight or height. They may be uncorrelated, or they may be correlated.
Fun fact: You can almost always score at least $10-20k if you're fired from a job if you try hard enough.
I've been on the employer side of this... you fire someone who's performing badly, and then they come back 4 months later and sue the company for [insert made up thing here].
In our case, an ex-employee is suing us for not accommodating an anxiety and migraine disability, which they never disclosed and never requested accommodations for. So now we face a discrimination lawsuit (from a non-minority) based completely on falsehoods and things that never happened.
The reason people do this is because it works! Employers will almost always settle before it goes in front of a judge in order to avoid the hassle and cost of defending the claim.
It works, but court cases are public record. Good luck getting anyone to touch you with a ten foot pole afterwards, not like the candidate can prove why they weren't selected.
Lol in my state I can see every (unsealed) civil case with a simple online query. My landlords have pretty much all done it, I don't know if the background checks show it but it's an extra 15 seconds to hedge a 10k+ potential liability.
Job performance as measured, yes, it already accounts for all biases/traits, including age, appearance, personality, performance, race and all other known/unknown biases that the people measuring the performance have.
I think it matters, because minorities experience a lot of ways in which products fail them that probably would not have happened had their needs had been represented and prioritized. If a minority group is not represented in the development of a product, their needs are more likely to be neglected.
Products are developed for a specific market. If the market of the given minority group where large enough, there would be special providers only for that. If I go buy an Italian Pizza place, I expect to receive an Italian Pizza, and not an Italian Pizza with a Chinese nuance to it. That's when I go to a Fusion place. It's by definition impossible to make product that satisfies everyone.
I don't think I disagree, so this is perhaps a devil's advocate argument--to the extent a product is meant for somewhat general use, by integrating more perspectives during development, we might uncover blind spots and innovate in ways that resonate more deeply with their core audience, not less. Asking, “Whose needs might we be overlooking?” could be useful not because every minority requires a bespoke solution, but because overlooking them might mean missing opportunities to serve even the majority better.
From anecdotal experience with voice recognition software: early versions struggled with accents and also required training on your voice specifically, which limited their utility. Making models more flexible didn’t just help minority users with accents—I think it improved accuracy for everyone. Similarly, curb cuts on sidewalks, originally designed for accessibility users, now benefit parents with strollers and even those food delivery robots running around some cities.
Maybe one frame is to avoid unintentional exclusion? The pizza shop isn't obligated to, but could at least consider the fact that some people don't eat meat (or pork or whatever), and therefore keep the margherita on the menu to the benefit of everyone.
I agree that it's impossible to build a product that satisfies everyone, which is the issue with global tech companies. In my utopian world, we would educate people and develop tools so that communities can build their own tools to cater to their own needs (in the same spirit as unix). I think that's better than what we have today with technocrats in Silicon valley dictating how tech should look and function for the rest of the world.
Your statement implies the assumption the minorities in this class action are underpaid because they perform worse than white and asian employees. I'm not sure that helps you not look like a racist.
The article doesn't go into details, so it's probably a safe bet not to make these sorts of assumptions at all.
"Cantu claimed she performed exemplary work over seven years in Google’s people operations and cloud departments, yet languished at the same job level while white and Asian peers got extra pay and promotions."
So this is an "I feel wronged so I'm going to call you names" trial, because the only person in question is Cantu.
As much as we lampoon capitalism in western countries, it's interesting the companies above a certain size are treated as public goods and not as a private venture. No one would enforce this on mom and pop shop or even a small chain store.
I wouldn't confuse plaintiffs with attorneys in class action cases.
Class action settlements are generally attorney paydays, rarely class member paydays. That goes for everything from industrial pollution settlements to discrimination settlements.
This looks like a bad faith lawsuit to extract money. Given all the discrimination in corporate DEI programs, especially at big tech companies, what actually happened is almost certainly the opposite - white and asian employees were discriminated against, in favor of a set of groups that were seen as under represented. In reality, without the bias DEI programs created, white and asian employees would have probably been hired at higher rates and promoted more quickly.
> Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
Am I interpreting this correctly? It sounds like the lawsuit is filed on behalf of at least 6,632 employees. $28,000,000 distributed amongst that many is roughly $4,221.95. That's not even accounting for the law firm's stake. That seems like an absurdly low amount to pay to folks to say "sorry we screwed your career over".
Google can and absolutely should be paying these people more in compensation.
Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.
Got any evidence for that? Is Google in the habit of paying out giant HR-related settlements for something other than protecting good ol' boys like Andy Rubin?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-rubin-google-settlement-se...
Google has enough money to hire the best law firms too. Why would any law firm engage in frivolous litigation against a potential future client?
The linked settlement is 10X that of this one, which if paid, would be divided among 6,600 people. Not exactly a huge payday.
As another commenter pointed out elsewhere, Google recently paid out a settlement claiming that it discriminated against Asians. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20210201 This settlement claims they favored Asians, but Google paid it out too!
So, yes, it appears Google is in the habit of paying out contradictory settlements rather than litigating them.
Google is a huge organisation, so both claims could certainly be true.
One thing I will note is that both of these can be true. Google is a huge company run by a lot of people and unless the specific claims are contradictory there's nothing stopping Google from doing both. It's not like we can expect it to be run with any consistent ideology
Getting 5 people to agree on one thing is so hard companies have Project Managers, doesn't seem unlikely that the left hand doesn't speak to the right when you get to Google scale.
At the scale of Google, both claims can be true. Different teams are responsible for their hiring and management, so might have their own biases.
For example if you could discriminate positively towards Chinese and negatively towards Indians and meet the claims in question.
> Got any evidence for that? Is Google in the habit of paying out giant HR-related settlements for something other than protecting good ol' boys like Andy Rubin?
The state of US case law -- IANAL, this is a layman's understanding -- is that plaintiffs only have to show that there exists "disparate impact," which is to say that outcomes were not exactly the same for Asians/whites and blacks.
Two things can be true: 1) Google did not intend to discriminate, did not institute any policy designed to discriminate, did not in actual fact discriminate against non-Asian/white employees; and 2) they could still be held liable for hiring results that look like discrimination in a single-variable analysis.
So, yes, I think there are indeed situations in which they'd pay out settlements knowing full well they've done nothing morally or ethically dubious.
That is not evidence of a shakedown by a corporate law firm, which is the original allegation.
Google, Apple and others have colluded to not poach employees from each other, distorting a free labor market, and settled that for $400m.[0]
[0]https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-...
It's not exactly beyond the realm of possibility that individual managers at Google had discriminatory promotion practices. Google picks up the legal tab for their alleged malfeasance, because they empower managers to make those decisions.
If it is so easy to squeeze some cash out of a major company, I'd imagine Google, Apple and many others in California would be cutting checks left and right to dodge lawsuits alleging violations of the state's Equal Pay Act, which saw its last major update in 2018, enacted into law in Jan 2019.[1]
https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/california_equal_pay_act.htm
> they could still be held liable for hiring results that look like discrimination in a single-variable analysis.
If anything shows that our liability laws and adjudication process is written by lawyers for lawyers it's rules like this.
Also NAL but I don't think you're correct about this.
First: the standard isn't relevant to a nuisance suit, since by definition you don't expect to win a nuisance suit anyway.
But setting that aside, disparate impact requires a significant difference in outcome and can be defended against by showing that the standards are relevant to job performance ("business necessity"). That's true for both the federal Civil Rights Act and the California Equal Pay Act (which is what this suit was brought under). So a "single variable analysis" isn't the end of the story, and employers can (and often do) provide statistical arguments that their policies satisfy business necessity.
I'd suggest looking up the case (Griggs v. Duke Power Co.) that established the disparate impact standard in the first place. TLDR, a company that had explicitly discriminatory Jim Crow-era policies banning black employees from certain departments adopted new requirements on the day the Civil Rights Act went into effect. Those requirements hadn't been in place before, Duke Power could not show any actual connection with job performance, and white employees were two to ten times more likely to satisfy them. A unanimous court (which, as a fun trivia fact, included an open former member of the Klan!) said nope, can't do that.
>Why would any law firm engage in frivolous litigation against a potential future client?
Because the chances is getting a payout is greater than the chances of ever working for Google.
I also doubt that Google will avoid hiring a law firm just because they were on the other side in the past.
The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye".
Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google:
* There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me.
* During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea". I was tapped on the shoulder by the contractor-teacher-person and asked to move aside and let the group do the very same thing without me.
* Nonwhite employees in my org also got a special mentor who helped them get a leg-up in the company. Some employees were whisked-away from their work responsibilities to go on little field trips with other teams. A few of these people were totally inept technically at their job and I saw them convert into better jobs. It must have been nice.
I'm pretty liberal, but this corpo-liberalism that somehow thinks an eye-for-an-eye to people living in 2025 is insane to me. It might even burn someone so much it changes their politics if they're whimsical.
That's very different from Google when I was there (both before and after the Damore memo).
1. There were ERGs for old people, young people, people who brought dogs to work, Irish people, Jewish people, etc. I can't imagine why they would say you couldn't create one for the group you wanted.
2. One thing hot-shot programmers fresh out of college need to learn is that while their opinion is valued, they need to listen to other people on the team as they may have important points as well. While it's nice to show initiative, that's L3-L4 thinking. To get to L5 or higher, you need to be able to listen, strategize, and drive consensus. All of those fuzzy things that you became a software engineer to avoid. Because at the end of the day, no one is particularly interested in how clever you are, they're interested in what you can get done. And you can get a heck of a lot more done through working with other people, even if they aren't quite as clever as you. After all, quantity has a quality all its own.
3. Every new employee gets assigned a mentor (at least at the office I was at). I'm not sure how this would differ from the "special" mentor you're talking about, but maybe you can inform me. Though with the level of ego reflected in your post, I'm not sure you would have benefited from a mentor, special or otherwise.
4. Some people that are hired are not as good, technically, as others. I'm aware of confirmation bias, so seeing a few less technically capable employees that happen not to be white doesn't surprise me. And when I do the math, assigning scores to previous co-workers and talking it up, I don't actually see a statistically significant difference in the capabilities based on race (though it does lean a bit towards white males being less capable).
But maybe my Google office wasn't representative, as we weren't one of the main ones.
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FYI to those not in the lingo ERG is an "Employee Resource Group".
I don't know if it's a common thing at companies or not, but it's a new initialism to me.
>There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me.
Imagine moving to say, Switzerland, to work for a massive corporation. 90% of the employees are Swiss. The other 10% come from a smattering of other countries from around the world. To help those employees acclimate to a new culture and find support, the company sponsors country-based ERGs.
Of course, there is no Swiss ERG, as it's the "default", because the entire company is essentially a Swiss ERG. But, the company encourages its Swiss employees to join the others as a show of support and cultural exchange.
If you had attended one of those groups, you might have found yourself feeling extraordinarily welcome, and even learned a few things about your fellow employees.
>A few of these people were totally inept technically at their job and I saw them convert into better jobs. It must have been nice.
If "totally inept" people are being promoted with any frequency, then that's a problem for any company. I think we have all seen this occasionally but, in my experience, it has very little to do with race (or other identity) and more to do with the Peter Principle and the fact that hiring and HR management is notoriously hard to get right.
I'm not suggesting anything about the earnestness of your observations, but you should be aware that assuming every non-white person you see at a company is the beneficiary of preferential treatment is a bit of a canard. And the idea that a disproportionate number of those are inept is yet another.
As such, whimsical people might draw rather nasty conclusions from your statements, that are other than what you intended.
If Swiss and white were the same thing, that would make a lot of sense. On the other hand if you were a Ukrainian refugee or something, learning Swiss-German as a second language and struggling to integrate into the company's Swiss culture, then it might feel extra-alienating if the company suggests you could join the Asian or Indian employee support groups to help you bridge the culture gap.
OTOH, for the same reason, skin-color-based groups don't really make sense to begin with.
>If Swiss and white were the same thing, that would make a lot of sense
We all have multiple identities. We relate to those identities and others relate to us by those identities—at times, unfortunately. So, you can substitute any identity here, and it still makes sense.
>it might feel extra-alienating if the company suggests you could join the Asian or Indian employee support groups
Not necessarily. There's certainly some overlap in experience, as they are all working to integrate into the same culture.
What you may be missing here is that it's not strictly about which specific group, but also about the fact that the group is not the majority / "culture-defining group".
>OTOH, for the same reason, skin-color-based groups don't really make sense to begin with.
Oh, if only they didn't, my friend. What a world this would be. It's worth noting that it's generally not those "skin-colors" who made these groups necessary. Part of it is just the complicated tribalism of humans. And, yes, another part of it is that some people have taken advantage of that tribalism.
ERG groups provide mentorship and support. The assumption that all white people, males or in this case Swiss don’t need support or get it automatically is plain wrong.
>ERG groups provide mentorship and support.
Yes, and Google offers a wide range of mentorship/support programs, from those for community college students to upskilling to new hires to tailored programs and more.
>The assumption that all white people, males or in this case Swiss don’t need support
I don't think anyone assumes that. I certainly don't. I'm sure Google provides other means of support to its employees, and ERGs represent just one approach, which address specific needs for specific employees.
What you have to understand is that people are tribal and that can have effects on "outgroups" in any given context. If we're out at lunch and all but one of us is in the same frat, we may unintentionally exclude that person. It's not necessarily intentional or malicious. That's obviously a simplification, but you can extrapolate.
So, ERGs aren't meant to be punitive or exclusionary. In fact, according to OP, Google encouraged all employees to join whichever groups interested them.
But again, why call out specific groups by gender or race and not call out others? Do people really think that a white guy from some poor area has more privilege and needs less support than some person from {insert oppressed group here} whose family is highly educated?
>But again, why call out specific groups by gender or race and not call out others?
History. There is an undeniable legacy of gender and race-based discrimination. This discrimination was absolutely laser-focused on gender and race, so is it fairer to simply ignore this and call it a wash?
For instance, some estimates of the value of free labor provided by slaves in the U.S. are upwards of $100 trillion, with an amplification effect (including an inverse one), compounding over generations.
>Do people really think that a white guy from some poor area has more privilege...
No. There are programs for people in rural areas, poorer areas, etc. To the extent that these are inadequate, they should also be addressed.
But, it's not just about economics. It's also about culture, socialization, etc.
Straight white men, or even just white people, is in no way the "default" at Google, and very far from the 90% in your allegory.
>Straight white men, or even just white people, is in no way the "default" at Google, and very far from the 90% in your allegory.
It's not supposed to map statistically on to Google. It's an analogy, intended to remove the problematic political context.
That said, Asian+White does make up 90%+ of Google's workforce, split roughly in half. Interestingly, there's an Asian ERG.
> Of course, there is no Swiss ERG, as it's the "default"
Switzerland is a country of three dominant languages. When I worked for a Swiss bank, they had internal groups for, essentially, domestic expats.
Not surprising. There are different ways to view identity, and none of us are any one thing. Your observation underscores my point that providing support along the lines of identity can be completely benign sans a political context.
That said, feel free to substitute a more homogenous country if that helps to clarify my point.
The point is offering development resources based on race, an immutable characteristic, is deeply unsettling to a lot of people. (I’m not white, for what it’s worth.)
>offering development resources based on race, an immutable characteristic, is deeply unsettling to a lot of people.
I understand, but I'm trying to provide a point of view that might make it less unsettling. Otherwise, we're just kind of saying that people find it unsettling, so it must be wrong (BTW, we also can't overlook that there are people who want to make it more unsettling, for reasons).
Anyway, it really comes down to backing up a little to consider why race became a factor. Else, if we simply start the clock at the inception of these groups, then I suppose it should be unsettling.
Interestingly, there are other immutable characteristics that do not trigger that unsettledness. If nothing else, this gives us reason to question why this particular characteristic became so charged.
> there are other immutable characteristics that do not trigger that unsettledness
Like what?
> this gives us reason to question why this particular characteristic became so charged
Because it's been a tool of social division. As a result, we've been attuned to it culturally from both sides (separation and integration).
>Like what?
The Disability Alliance Network (DA)?
I'm assuming that's a good example, because I've yet to see an outcry around disabled people getting unfair advantages.
But, it's really down to any group that has not been socially or politically charged. So, I'd also say things like women's groups, given their historic underrepresentation in tech. However, that's also become charged recently.
So, what we have is this thing of defining what's OK by how people react to it or, maybe more accurately, how people are encouraged to react. That seems potentially unhealthy and infinitely abusable.
>Because it's been a tool of social division.
Exactly. But, it's not just division in the sense of splitting people in half. There's also a historic inequity that corresponds with one side.
Some make the argument that you can't heal division by "dividing further". But, I think it's a little unfair to simply not acknowledge those who have been negatively impacted. The other part is that the existence of a group doesn't have to be divisive in itself. In fact, seeking to understand and support them can be quite the opposite.
Google is like 45% white, 45% Asian.
Asians have an ERG.
If Whites want to make an ERG, why can't they? What is special about Whites that they must be prevented from doing the thing that literally all others have done?
>Asians have an ERG.
Google doesn't exist in a vacuum, but in a broader culture (e.g. America). If you're coming from an Asian country, you might still feel alienated or simply want to connect with people who intrinsically understand your culture.
That said, the Asian makeup of Google has increased significantly over the years. I wonder how that has impacted the participation rate in its ERG versus when it was originally established.
>* What is special about Whites that they must be prevented from doing the thing that literally all others have done?*
The dominant culture is essentially the "default" and is somewhat "self-reinforcing", so generally has no need of an identity-based support group. Thus, when the dominant culture does establish an identity-based group, it tends to take on a different meaning.
> The dominant culture is essentially the "default" and is somewhat "self-reinforcing", so generally has no need of an identity-based support group. Thus, when the dominant culture does establish an identity-based group, it tends to take on a different meaning.
You're being so indirect we're forced to guess at what you mean. Can you please say clearly why you think White must be actually prevented from doing this, when all other groups have already done so?
Not why you think they don't need one - why do you think they must be prevented, even if some of them want to start one?
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As a white man who used to work for G:
> There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me.
What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it?
> Nonwhite employees in my org also got a special mentor who helped them get a leg-up in the company.
There are general mentorship programs, too. Usually focused on career development. I was a part of the main one.
“ What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it?”
What do other groups get? Support, networking, mentorship probably. A lot of white people could use that help too.
> Support, networking, mentorship
I get plenty of that elsewhere. Do you have issues finding support, networking events, and mentorship programs?
ERGs specifically tend to group those generic, open-to-all programs together and add another layer of `navigating the workplace as [insert ERG demographic]` that doesn't really make sense if you insert "white man".
How about an ERG for people who need support? When I started working I had no idea how things work and nobody told me. I didn't even know that things like mentorship exist. I had been taught by my parents that you go to work and do what you are told to do.
> I didn't even know that things like mentorship exist.
If you don't know about mentorship programs that already exist and fills at least most of the gap you're talking about, how would you find the ERG?
>What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it?
The exact same thing as anyone of any other group of course.
To be clear, Whites are a minority at Google. They are also not even the largest group. (Not that this should matter - all groups have the right to exist).
>Whites are a minority at Google
Is that true? Do white men at google face systemic oppression?
when did we decide to redefine 'minority' as "faces systemic oppression"?
I asked a follow up question.
I don't even believe that white men aren't the largest demographic at google.
But even if they aren't, do they face systemic oppression because of this?
Why is it relevant that they aren't a majority?
Google's own figures say Whites are not the largest group.
Yes, Whites face systemic oppression by any definition of the word. For example, hiring systems set up that systemically prefer others over them.
I’m uninitiated to this concept and not white
and I’m scratching my head about why these same questions arent asked for “employee resource groups” of other minority “themes”
as well as why the ability to empathise is so apparent for those other themes but not so easily imagined for this person who is white
forgot the EEOC, I’m about to go to the SEC Whistleblower bounty program since shareholders might want to know how misguided the population there is
Well, most other groups have had a rough go at it throughout recent history, and often have to approach the workplace differently because it takes a long time to reverse some of our previous mistakes.
We considered many black folks property until 1865, and we had segregation of some schools in the 1960s. We didn't let women vote until 1920. We put Japanese people in internment camps until 1946. Gay folks couldn't marry in all states until 2015. Do I have to list more?
If you don't think this kind of stuff leaks into the workplace, then I don't think you're paying attention.
> We put Japanese people in internment camps until 1946
And now they are economically ahead of the average American. Universities actually discriminate against them by their malevolent definition of "fairness" where success is a punishable offense. People are where they are because of what they do today, not what happened to their ancestors in the past.
That doesn't explain why ERG's exist for that, and it doesn't explain why they are dismissive of what people who are white && and not women encounter in life or as an employee, seeking resources
Why are you invalidating their experience, its look like you have let something else leak into the workplace under an amusingly ironic interpretation of empathy
Let's write it again in a different way: Nothing about the name "Employee Resource Group" suggests that "state-sanctioned disenfranchisement at some point in the country's history" is the only reason or prerequisite for an employee seeking resources
Looks like an another race and ethnicity settlement is brewing
Look, they had a whiskey drinkers ERG when I was there. For people that like to meet to drink whiskey.
I'm not sure what OP actually proposed, but I'm reasonably sure he's not telling the whole story.
Thanks for the context
> Why are you invalidating their experience
What experience are you talking about? What resources are lacking that don't address those experiences?
I would have been happy if it was called "White Allies" and it just focused on being a good sensitive person.
There are plenty of allyship opportunities at big companies. Or at least, there were. I don't really know the status of some companies after the current political environment started changing things.
Focusing on "White Allies" is a bit strange, though. Anyone not directly in a given group can be allies.
Let me take a wild guess that they don't not have a group for former poor people?
So when some are preferred with "equal" skills others are discriminated against.
Why should a rational person support people who act against him. This will horribly backfire...
Except people on Blind brag about doing this under the domains they control.
I wouldn't interpret this as a top-level policy, just some individuals in some hiring and pay/leveling decisions with little accountability. This does mean they represent Google though, and one remedy for that is a settlement by the corporate entity.
Ideally shareholders would become interested in rooting this out and creating better, less expensive, accountability.
It creates an environment where everyone (or some additional subset of everyone) feels they need to elevate their own in-group.
What's the effective difference between unofficial policy of discrimination and individual groups conducting discrimination en mass?
Thinking back to a unicorn I worked for we were unofficially told to favour women in hiring. We all thought it was a great idea at that time, but also I do remember a coworker saying how her group has been doing heavy favouring of women in hiring for years already before being told to do so.
There isn't an effective difference
If people want to change anything about it, they need to know the structure of it
I've observed orgs go from diverse to turn largely Indian or Chinese based upon who does the hiring, the only group that doesn't seem to do this is Americans of all ethnicities (Chinese american, indian american, white american etc). White americans seem like the ones having the least legal recourse. When these leaders move they pull these buddies into their new companies, and they often form cliques that operate using their groups culture and protect each other over company interests.
> Adams said the settlement came after Cantu’s lawyers agreed this month to exclude Black employees from the proposed class action, which Google had sought.
Does anyone familiar with the case know the context behind this?
I wonder why “Black” employees were asked to be excluded from the lawsuit before Google agreed to settle.
In general, Google objected to the broadness of the class, which on initial filing covered all non-White employees. Specifically in regard to Black employees, they pointed out that some of the evidence presented suggested that Black employees actually earned less even than Latino and indigenous employees, so they might actually have opposing interests. There was also reference made to a different class action (Curley v. Google, in federal court) that would cover Black employees instead.
This got down to a pretty low level of details, not only specifically cutting the class down to "Hispanic, Latinx, Indigenous, Native American, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and/or Alaska Native" employees but also explicitly excluding anyone in any of those groups who identified as Black.
It appears to be because the person who filed the suit was mostly concerned with oppression of people of "Hispanic, Latino, Indigenous, Native American and other minority backgrounds."
Well, squeeky wheel gets the oil.
The bigger issue really is that Google should start reviews of a lot of managerial decisions in this regard. If you've got courts agreeing with plaintiffs, then these people you've been hiring are pursuing their, um, "preferences", a little bit too openly. You have to take things back in hand.
The court did not agree with the plaintiffs - this case was settled outside of court.
I'm guessing the court made no statement either way if there was a settlement? A civil court's job in the USA is to try every possible means to help both sides to reach a settlement (or other disposition) without trial. Trial is an extraordinary remedy.
A court will never make a statement favoring either side in a settlement. A settlement means the case never went to trial, and therefore, the sides never presented their cases in full to the court, so such a statement would be completely out of line.
In my brief experience with litigation the only role the court has in helping both sides achieve a settlement is forcing the litigants to go through endless and expensive procedure until they both realize it's not worth it. Before trial, the court does little to indicate to you that it even knows you exist.
I've done a lot of litigation.. the last settlement I did the federal judge basically sat in her pajamas in front of her web cam all day flicking back and forth between plaintiff and defendant doing her best to talk through both sides of the arguments while trying to keep secret what the other side was telling her. She was very patient, despite how tiring and tedious the negotiations were. She was very actively engaged, though, bless her cotton socks.
I wondered that too. Maybe the data presented by the plaintiffs showed that they were less egregiously or obviously affected?
No, it simultaneously bolstered the case while being covered by a different settlement
lol
? https://www.statista.com/statistics/311810/google-employee-e...
shows 5 percent black people. not a huge amount
Same as the background rate: https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/software-engineer/dem...
By the same numbers "Latinx+" are actually over-represented at Google and white people underrepresented. Neither by a large amount though.
With how close the numbers actually are I wonder if the different biases of different HR people and hiring managers actually cancelled out pretty well.
Side rant. Cut the Latinx crap please, Latinos don't really feel represented by the force-fed "inclusive" name that straight up goes against their gendered languages. It's overriding the language to seem more inclusive in English
Just to be clear on this one: are you Latino? Why do you speak for them? I have latino friends who insist on that language, some who don't give a fuck, and latinx friends who own that jab at the patriarchal idea of forcing gender on genderless objects or groups.
Put another way: The NAACP didn't change their name, but if you called most black folk I know "colored" they'd punch you in the throat. Language is fluid and all that.
So again I ask: Why the generalization on how a whole mish mosh of people feel.
I probably agree much more with you on these issues in general than I do with the other poster, and there are so many bigger problems right now, but we don't need to speak for anyone here. We just listen to what's already been said.
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/09/12/la...
Less than half of Hispanics have even heard the term "Latinx", and of those that have, an overwhelming majority (75%) say they'd rather you don't use it. This is true regardless of age, gender, race, education level, party affiliation, orientation/gender identity, and immigration status - you don't get a much clearer picture than that in a poll. The plurality, and usually majority, preferred term across all demographic slices was "Hispanic", which is also not gendered.
If we choose particular terminology, and ask others to do so as well, shouldn't it be with the clearly-expressed preferences of the people we're talking about in mind? To me, that seems like the most obviously-respectful path.
> Less than half of Hispanics have even heard the term "Latinx"
It doesn't help that it's unnatural to even pronounce.
> there are so many bigger problems right now
Indeed, I'm more worried about the loss of true freedom of speech and the impending sense of WW3 coming. Having HR mix up race and sexual identity in some select countries is a minor complaint.
> Just to be clear on this one: are you Latino?
Yes, and look at the stats that the sibling post shared. I'm talking from experience and obviously some generalisation from what I saw among a few separate groups of Latinos. I'm not making stuff up just to be offended on the internet.
> I have latino friends who insist on that language, some who don't give a fuck, and latinx friends who own that jab at the patriarchal idea of forcing gender on genderless objects or groups.
Yes, but the ratios I saw had a clear trend and everyone agreed that the X at the end was clearly made up and force-fed instead of borrowed from Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/French.
> Why do you speak for them?
Why do you?
Quit policing other people’s speech, please.
Lead by example.
My comment was pointing out the hypocrisy of the parent.
I don’t use LatinX, but I don’t think it changes anything and it doesn’t bother me that other people do.
> I don’t use LatinX, but I don’t think it changes anything and it doesn’t bother me that other people do.
Surely it doesn't change anything for you, but I'm not complaining because absolutely no one got mad, people were furious, but unsure how to get angry at the Diversity stuff without getting cancelled.
On the one hand, this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish.
As we're not actually using real Spanish, such criticisms feel to me like objecting to the way Star Trek dares to boldly split infinitives that have never been split before on the basis that Latin (the language) didn't split them — Latin couldn't split infinitives because infinitives in Latin are single words, just as the -x suffix to denote -[o/a in this case but way more complex when you get to all the other gendered suffixes] doesn't make sense in Spanish.
(And now I'm wondering if anyone says "una hombra" and "un mujero" for trans people…)
This is mainly a comment about English speakers borrowing the word as an exonym, my grasp of the Spanish language itself is "tourist" at best.
> On the one hand, this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish.
I don't see many English words ending in X, so I doubt it's linguistically correct in English either. Normally you just borrow the word as closely as possible, maybe trying to make it easier to pronounce (see any word the Japanese borrow from English), but here people that didn't speak Spanish, but apparently knew a little bit took over.
Box.
English corrupts a lot of stuff it borrows, the examples which come to mind are when people try to be fancy. See also "chai tea", the difference between beef and cow. Also corrupts itself spontaneously, what with all the "u"s in British English or how many "i"s there are in aluminium.
Slient letters. Queue. Ptarmigan.
> Box.
Ok, but this isn't a Portuguese/Spanish/French word that was borrowed into English that naturally got a final X because it suited English better.
I didn't say there are no words ending in X, but it isn't common and it's not a way to help borrow words from other languages, nor is the X also borrowed.
> this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish
That the linguistically correct in both English and Spanish (and other Latin-derivative languages) term “Latin” got passed over in favour of Latinx sort of speaks to the motivations of those who pushed it.
"Latin" is a demonym in Spanish?
Huh. Well, I repeat the point about my Spanish language (lack of) skill.
(At time of writing Spanish is not listed on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/latin or https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Latin, but I don't know how complete that dictionary is).
> "Latin" is a demonym in Spanish?
It’s not--it's still a neologism. But it’s grammatically conventional to both languages in a way LatinX is not. (The idea of neutering languages without a neuter tense is its own can if worms.)
> By the same numbers "Latinx+" are actually over-represented at Google…
That's probably the case for much of California, where they're HQed.
Google's HQ is in Northern California.
Corrected, thanks.
does anyone care if they perform better or does even suggesting that make me a racist in the modern world?
If you read the complaint, the allegation is that controlling for performance evaluations, members of certain groups were preferred over others for promotion.
I don't have any insight, but given the culture that google projects, I would be skeptical of the integrity of their performance evaluations.
Why would group averages be helpful when making staffing decisions about individuals?
That's obvious, no?
If group X on average performs better than group Y, then objective hiring will lead to more group X bring hired. Then group Y takes you to court for discrimination.
It really depends on what assumptions you are making, your basis of comparison, and how you measure performance.
Does X perform better than Y in general or within the community. Does hiring match national population, the applicant pool, or the top 1% of the applicant pool? How do you measure performance?
These topics are rarely fleshed out in any public corporate policy. All I know is my bonus depends on increasing the % of minority employees.
I don’t think it’s obvious that summary statistics will be helpful unless they’re particularly carefully done. Where do averages come from? If individual data points are biased in the same direction (that is, not noise that cancels out) then the group average will be too.
This isn’t something you can just assume when you see someone quoting statistics. It could be a garbage study.
Is the Google applicant pool a representative sample of the group at large?
They generally aren't. See the ecological fallacy.
They can explain the "disparate impact".
He didn't say so
Exactly. You can't just simply assume that job performance is statistically independent of various seemingly unrelated traits. If you suspect age discrimination, you also can't just assume that age is uncorrelated with performance. Or being short sighted, or even things like weight or height. They may be uncorrelated, or they may be correlated.
Fun fact: You can almost always score at least $10-20k if you're fired from a job if you try hard enough.
I've been on the employer side of this... you fire someone who's performing badly, and then they come back 4 months later and sue the company for [insert made up thing here].
In our case, an ex-employee is suing us for not accommodating an anxiety and migraine disability, which they never disclosed and never requested accommodations for. So now we face a discrimination lawsuit (from a non-minority) based completely on falsehoods and things that never happened.
The reason people do this is because it works! Employers will almost always settle before it goes in front of a judge in order to avoid the hassle and cost of defending the claim.
It works, but court cases are public record. Good luck getting anyone to touch you with a ten foot pole afterwards, not like the candidate can prove why they weren't selected.
So HR pays to check this for every candidate? No wonder it's hard to get hired.
Lol in my state I can see every (unsealed) civil case with a simple online query. My landlords have pretty much all done it, I don't know if the background checks show it but it's an extra 15 seconds to hedge a 10k+ potential liability.
Though this problem seems to be mostly restricted to the US American legal system.
Job performance as measured, yes, it already accounts for all biases/traits, including age, appearance, personality, performance, race and all other known/unknown biases that the people measuring the performance have.
I think it matters, because minorities experience a lot of ways in which products fail them that probably would not have happened had their needs had been represented and prioritized. If a minority group is not represented in the development of a product, their needs are more likely to be neglected.
Products are developed for a specific market. If the market of the given minority group where large enough, there would be special providers only for that. If I go buy an Italian Pizza place, I expect to receive an Italian Pizza, and not an Italian Pizza with a Chinese nuance to it. That's when I go to a Fusion place. It's by definition impossible to make product that satisfies everyone.
I don't think I disagree, so this is perhaps a devil's advocate argument--to the extent a product is meant for somewhat general use, by integrating more perspectives during development, we might uncover blind spots and innovate in ways that resonate more deeply with their core audience, not less. Asking, “Whose needs might we be overlooking?” could be useful not because every minority requires a bespoke solution, but because overlooking them might mean missing opportunities to serve even the majority better.
From anecdotal experience with voice recognition software: early versions struggled with accents and also required training on your voice specifically, which limited their utility. Making models more flexible didn’t just help minority users with accents—I think it improved accuracy for everyone. Similarly, curb cuts on sidewalks, originally designed for accessibility users, now benefit parents with strollers and even those food delivery robots running around some cities.
Maybe one frame is to avoid unintentional exclusion? The pizza shop isn't obligated to, but could at least consider the fact that some people don't eat meat (or pork or whatever), and therefore keep the margherita on the menu to the benefit of everyone.
I agree that it's impossible to build a product that satisfies everyone, which is the issue with global tech companies. In my utopian world, we would educate people and develop tools so that communities can build their own tools to cater to their own needs (in the same spirit as unix). I think that's better than what we have today with technocrats in Silicon valley dictating how tech should look and function for the rest of the world.
It's obviously lacking a lot of controls if you arrive at the conclusion. Mostly just shows you are missing of a lot of context.
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Your statement implies the assumption the minorities in this class action are underpaid because they perform worse than white and asian employees. I'm not sure that helps you not look like a racist.
The article doesn't go into details, so it's probably a safe bet not to make these sorts of assumptions at all.
Psychology has determined there is no non-racist way to evaluate performance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43407157
$4,221 per employee is not a ton —- less after legal fees.
generally there are no legal fees in a class action suit and the lawyers are doing it for a % of the total award.
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Pays for one month of rent.
Perhaps that is a clue!
"Cantu claimed she performed exemplary work over seven years in Google’s people operations and cloud departments, yet languished at the same job level while white and Asian peers got extra pay and promotions."
So this is an "I feel wronged so I'm going to call you names" trial, because the only person in question is Cantu.
Who is getting paid
Proceeds will be donated to the center of Google Kids Who Can't Read Good.
lol, wait until the govt hears about Amazon engineering orgs. Or any other big tech company nowadays..
As much as we lampoon capitalism in western countries, it's interesting the companies above a certain size are treated as public goods and not as a private venture. No one would enforce this on mom and pop shop or even a small chain store.
Lol... they paid out in a settlement back in 2021 for discriminating against asians.
https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20210201
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The wage fixing case settlements were about that small, despite there being no shortage of merits for that case.
meh.
I wouldn't confuse plaintiffs with attorneys in class action cases.
Class action settlements are generally attorney paydays, rarely class member paydays. That goes for everything from industrial pollution settlements to discrimination settlements.
This looks like a bad faith lawsuit to extract money. Given all the discrimination in corporate DEI programs, especially at big tech companies, what actually happened is almost certainly the opposite - white and asian employees were discriminated against, in favor of a set of groups that were seen as under represented. In reality, without the bias DEI programs created, white and asian employees would have probably been hired at higher rates and promoted more quickly.
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https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
Am I interpreting this correctly? It sounds like the lawsuit is filed on behalf of at least 6,632 employees. $28,000,000 distributed amongst that many is roughly $4,221.95. That's not even accounting for the law firm's stake. That seems like an absurdly low amount to pay to folks to say "sorry we screwed your career over".
Google can and absolutely should be paying these people more in compensation.
Not getting a job at Google does not screw ones career over. I missed out on a job at Google and my career is doing great.
If you read the title of this submission, this was not about getting a job at Google but rather treatment of Google employees.