A former Google employee filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the company, alleging that it has a “pattern and practice” of treating Black employees unfairly. According to the lawsuit, the firm forced them into lower-level and lower-paying employment and exposed them to a hostile work environment if they spoke up.

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April Curley was hired in 2014 to help the organisation find Black candidates. According to her lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, she was unlawfully fired in 2020 after she began speaking out and “called for reform of the barriers and double standards Google imposed on Black employees and applicants.”

“Pursuant to its strong, racially biased corporate culture, Google is engaged in a pattern and practice of race discrimination against its African American and Black employees,” the complaint states. “Google’s centralized leadership, which is nearly devoid of Black representation, holds biased and stereotypical views about the abilities and potential of Black professionals.”

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According to the lawsuit, as a result, Black employees are paid less, progress less, and frequently leave the organisation.

On Monday, a Google spokesperson did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, is the culmination of years of complaints by Black employees at the corporation. Timnit Gebru, a notable artificial intelligence scholar, claims she was fired in 2020 after a disagreement about a research paper exploring the potential dangers of an emerging branch of artificial intelligence.

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Gebru claimed on Twitter that she had been fired, but Google informed employees that she had quit. Over 1,200 Google employees signed an open letter condemning the situation as “unprecedented research censorship” and accusing the business of racism and defensiveness.

According to Curley’s lawsuit, the corporation saw Black job prospects “through harmful racial stereotypes,” and recruiting supervisors found Black candidates “not ‘Googly’ enough, a plain dog whistle for race discrimination.”

Furthermore, interviewers “hazed” and undermined Black candidates, and hired Black candidates into lower-paying and lower-level posts with less development possibilities based on their ethnicity and racial stereotypes, according to the claim.

According to the suit, Curley and others were frequently “pigeon-holed into dead-end jobs.”

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Google wanted Curley to “quietly put on a good face for the company and toe the company line” after hiring her particularly to recruit Black prospects for the company, according to the lawsuit. Instead, she was a champion for Black employees and Black students who “vocally opposed and called for reform of the barriers and double standards Google imposed on Black employees and applicants,” according to the claim.

According to the complaint, Google “unlawfully marginalised, undermined, and ultimately terminated” Curley in response.