Google executive Ülkü Rowe has been granted a $1.15 million court verdict, marking her as the first woman to successfully litigate a gender bias case against the company. Her aspiration is to motivate others to follow suit.
A jury has determined that Google engaged in sexual discrimination and has ordered the company to pay $1.1 million to Ülkü Rowe, a female executive in Google Cloud who filed the complaint. Rowe’s legal action contended that the company provided greater compensation to less-experienced male colleagues and subsequently refused her promotions in response to her internal and later, legal complaints.
Rowe said before the trial started that her time at Google was “overshadowed by what I believe are unfair compensation and treatment due to my gender.” She alleged that, after the company passed her over for a promotion to vice president that was given to a man who had neither applied nor was qualified, and that, after she filed her lawsuit, the company again denied her another similar promotion.
After Rowe raised the issue internally, she was labeled “abrasive,” excluded from meetings, passed over for a promotion for which she was qualified, and ultimately demoted, according to her legal filings. Rowe’s lawyer Cara Greene, a partner at the firm Outten and Golden, calls retaliation just as harmful as discrimination because it “kills people’s willingness to come forward about discrimination.”
Bloomberg Law reported that the jury ruled that Google owes Rowe for both punitive damages and pain and suffering. However, the jury reportedly found that while Google treated Rowe “differently than other employees because of her gender,” Rowe hadn’t proven that Google violated New York law by paying her less than two of her male counterparts.
Historic verdict
In an email sent to The Verge, Greene said that the “unanimous verdict not only validates Ms. Rowe’s allegations of mistreatment by Google,” but that it sends a message that “discrimination and retaliation will not be tolerated in the workplace.”
It comes nearly five years after some 20,000 Google employees organized a walkout to demand changes around the company’s handling of sexual misconduct and discrimination.
While the company pledged to do better on sexual harassment, its response still left a lot to be desired on the topics of bias. the Rowe lawsuit is the first such case Google has faced since the protests. Greene called the jury’s decision “historic,” and credited the 2018 demonstrations for making it possible.
Sources: The Verge, Wired, EnGadget