April Christina Curley, a Google recruiter focused on Black colleges, says she was fired in September and alleges a hostile work environment for Black people
- A Google employee, who said she was fired by the tech giant in September, claimed Monday that her manager told her that her way of speaking …
Business InsiderKate Duffy
Context & Ripple Effects
Curley’s allegation arrived shortly after Timnit Gebru described her struggles as a Black leader at Google, placing Google’s treatment of Black employees under a more sustained public lens. The case also bears directly on recruiting because Curley’s work focused on Black colleges.
Curley’s dismissal claim and hostile-work-environment allegation put Google’s management of Black employee concerns, including its Black-college recruiting effort, under immediate scrutiny.
Google must address a public allegation that its workplace practices conflicted with the inclusion goals attached to its recruiting efforts.
California regulators’ later investigation means workplace complaints at Google can move beyond internal employee-relations processes into external civil-rights scrutiny.
Third-order effects
If hiring gains continue to coincide with higher attrition, large tech employers’ diversity programs will be judged increasingly on retention and workplace conditions rather than recruiting totals.
Repeated allegations involving Black employees can make civil-rights oversight a more durable governance issue for Google, rather than a series of isolated personnel disputes.
The trend: Tech diversity efforts are shifting from a hiring-focused scorecard toward accountability for retention, workplace treatment, and external oversight.
I'm finna tell yall why @Google fired me- their MOST successful diversity recruiter in the history of their company- with the receipts to support that statement.
Another Black woman was ousted from Google for demanding genuine D&I efforts. What happened to @timnitGebru & @RealAbril exposes a larger issue. My latest w/ @aprilaser highlights the institutionalized sexism/racism & the culture of fear rife at Google. https://www.nbcnews.com/..…
#HBCU20x20 has cancelled its partnership with @Google We refuse to partner with a company who continues to oust/disrespect Black people. Black people deserve better, and it's clear @Google has not find the need to do better. We do not encourage working or interning at Google. htt…
Google fired a second Black woman widely celebrated for success in her field @RealAbril — after Google did not respond to demands from Black employees from within the company for better treatment and representation. My latest w/@CiCiAdams_ https://www.nbcnews.com/...
In 2014, I was hired at Google to fundamentally shift the relationship (or lack thereof) that Google had with Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Before my role existed, Google had NEVER, and I mean fucking NEVER hired an HBCU student into a tech role-
My skip-level manager, a white woman, told me VERBATIM that the way I speak (oftentimes with a heavy Baltimore accent) was a disability that I should disclose when meeting with folks internally.
Reading about what happened to @timnitGebru at Google is both triggering and yet super encouraging. While I don't want to capitalize off of her moment, I do want to share my experience as a black queer woman at Google.
This is an important thread because the other side is how many “launched initiatives” programs etc are white as hell championed by white folks who don't think this or it's manifestations in code or NO or strategy is a problem https://twitter.com/...
Black women only make up .7 percent of Google's technical workforce. April's job in the company was specifically to recruit Black and brown tech talent. She says she had increased the number of recruits from HBCUs by 300 percent at Google before she was fired https://twitter.com/…
On September 11, 2020, I was terminated from Google. Even having to type those words still feels fucking awful. I'm admittedly still processing and working through all of the emotions that surround being fired from my whole ass job.
Why are there so few Black women in tech? When April Curley worked at Google, she was “harassed by managers, including being told that her Baltimore accent was a disability that she needed to disclose to colleagues.” https://twitter.com/...
Because of my adamant advocacy of black and brown students to be fairly and justly considered for roles at Google, I experienced active abuse and retaliation from several managers who harassed me- and many other black women.
Please read that shit again. It's as egregious as it sounds. At the time of my departure, I had single handedly increased Google's black engineering hiring from HBCUs by over 300%. Meaning- I brought in over 300 Black and Brown students from HBCUs who were hired into eng roles
Ultimately my last manager, his manager and HR decided that the best way to shut me up was to fire me. My last manager had his ego bruised FROM JUMP when I refused to discuss my sexuality with him (once asking me which of my teammates I would sleep with-TF)
I worked with @RealAbril and I cannot even express how hard she worked for her Black and Brown students. And you can look at the numbers, she was successful as hell at it. So they did to her what they love to do to Black employees, treated her like garbage and then fired her. htt…
This summer, a senior Google manager told authors of a draft paper on content recommendation tech to “take great care to strike a positive tone,” internal correspondence shows. The authors then “updated to remove all references to Google products.”
The news came to light after @timnitGebru says Google fired her; she had questioned an order not to publish research saying AI that mimics speech could disadvantage marginalized communities.