Google to pay $3.8 million to settle discrimination allegations
02 February 2021
Google will pay more than $3.8 million to settle Labor Department allegations that the search giant discriminated in hiring and pay against women and people of Asian descent.
The big picture: The deal ends the Labor Department case but the broader issues of discrimination at Google and other tech giants are far from settled.
Details: Under the terms of the deal, which the Labor Department announced Monday evening, Google will:
- hand over $1.3 million in back pay and interest to 2,565 female employees in engineering positions that were subject to pay discrimination;
- pay more than $1.2 million to 1,757 female and 1,219 Asian applicants who were not hired for software engineering positions; and
- set up a cash reserve of at least $1.35 million to make pay equity adjustments over the next five years.
Flashback: Google denied the allegations when the Labor Department first made them in 2017
Between the lines: The settlement comes as Google is under renewed scrutiny for how it treats women and people of color, an issue brought to the forefront with the ouster of prominent Black AI researcher Timnit Gebru.
Go deeper:Tech research becomes hazardous ground
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.