UK Edition
YouTube stopped hiring white men in attempt to boost diversity, lawsuit claims
YouTube stopped hiring white and Asian men in a blunt attempt to make the company more diverse, a lawsuit claims.
Arne Wilberg, a former recruiter at the Google-owned video website, said he was fired for speaking out against the company’s practices last year when it cancelled interviews with candidates who were not female, black or Hispanic for technical jobs.
Mr Wilberg’s lawsuit said YouTube wanted to “purge entirely” white and Asian candidates and claims the company broke discrimination laws when it dismissed him after nine years working for Google.
It is the latest diversity row to hit Google, coming in the same week as a separate lawsuit claiming that a toxic “bro culture” discriminated against women.
Google said it would defend itself. “We have a clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity,” a spokesman said. “At the same time, we unapologetically try to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates for open roles, as this helps us hire the best people, improve our culture, and build better products.”
Google and other technology companies are struggling to make their workforces more diverse amid claims that they are dominated by white men.
Google, which files regular diversity reports on its employees in the US, says 69pc of are male and 56pc are white, against 35pc Asian and 2pc black. In high-tech roles the gap is greater, with 80pc of roles filled by men, and the difference has only budget slightly in recent years.
The lawsuit claims Google has a policy of “systematically discriminating in favour [of] job applicants who are Hispanic, African American, or female, and against Caucasian and Asian men”.
Mr Wilberg said YouTube attempted to cover up its ban on hiring white and Asian men by deleting emails and other records of its diversity requirements.
Last year James Damore, a Google engineer, ignited a fierce row at the company when he wrote a memo criticising its attempts to boost diversity and claiming it had a “politically correct monoculture”. Mr Damore was promptly fired but has since sued Google. The company was cleared by the US National Labor Relations Board last month.
Last month Loretta Lee, a former Google engineer, sued the company claiming it had done little to address a culture of sexual harrassment.