Google loses gender bias lawsuit, ordered to pay $1 million

Google has been ordered to pay over $1 million to a female exec against her gender bias lawsuit. A New York-based jury found the company guilty of sexual discrimination and awarded the exec over $1 million in punitive damages. A Bloomberg Law report claims that the search engine giant also owes damages to the female employee for pain and suffering.

Google Cloud executive Ulku Rowe was treated differently than her male colleagues

According to the report, Google female cloud executive Ulku Rowe was being treated differently than her male colleagues. The search engine titan now must pay the executive more than $1 million in damages. An eight-person jury decided that Google owes the executive $150,000 for pain and suffering caused by the gender bias treatment. In addition, the company must pay $1 million in punitive damages. Bringing the total compensation for the lawsuit to $1.15 million.

In her gender bias lawsuit, Rowe claimed that she was being treated differently at the company when it comes to compensation. She had a work experience of around 23 years when she joined Google as a cloud executive in 2017. She was hired as a level eight employee. However, the male execs who were hired at the same time were offered the positions at level nine. They were hired at this position despite having lesser experience than her.

Rowe said that Google passed her over for a promotion to vice president for a male employee. Furthermore, her lawsuit mentioned that the man had neither applied or was qualified for the vice president position. She also said that after the lawsuit was filed, Google again denied her promotion to a similar position. Rowe said before the trial started, her time at Google was “overshadowed by what I believe are unfair compensation and treatment due to my gender.”

Rowe’s lawsuit is the first gender discrimination case against Google since 2018 walkouts

Notably, Ulku Rowe’s lawsuit is the first gender discrimination case against the tech giant since mass walkouts in 2018. In that year, around 20,000 Google employees organized a mass walkout. They demanded changes around the brand’s policy of handling sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the work place. After the mass walkout, Goggle promised to improve its response to workplace sexual harassment complaints.

The report also mentioned that Rowe will get the compensation for her gender discrimination lawsuit against Google. However, she didn’t prove that the company paid her less than her male colleagues, in violation of New York law. As a level eight employee, the executive was reportedly paid around $750,00 per year. At the same time, many of the level nine Google employees were making around $1 million a year.