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Pinterest announced this week that it will pay more than $ 20 million to address a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by a female executive. But for two former black employees who had previously filed similar complaints, the solution is a “slap”.
Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks became public leaders for Pinterest after leading widely announced policy changes, including the addition of vaccination content verification features, that preceded those of technology rivals such as YouTube and Facebook. . But internally, both former employees said they faced withdrawals.
In June 2020, after leaving their jobs on the Pinterest policy team, they became public with pretensions, they had to fight to be paid fairly and were retaliated against for advocating for change. Ozoma also said that the company failed to protect her when a colleague shared her personal information with hate sites.
Ozoma and Banks ended up leaving the company with half a year of compensation. But their public comments laid the groundwork for other women and people of color in the company to share similar experiences.
Two months after they left, former Pinterest COO Françoise Brougher sued the company for gender discrimination – a case that led to a $ 22 million settlement this week.
For Jade Magnus Ogunnaike, the chief campaign officer of the civil rights organization Color of Change, the solution is the latest example of a Silicon Valley company that presents unfair treatment to its black employees.
“It shouldn’t go unnoticed that Pinterest still hasn’t been able to provide an excuse or course of action for liability to Ifeoma and Aerica – two black women whose courage to speak has triggered a public examination of the company’s toxic culture.” which probably influenced this week’s settlement, “she said.
Banks said she and Ozoma decided to run in June because Pinterest, like many companies this year, has made public statements in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I couldn’t stand aside and let a company escape the Black Lives Matter post when they weren’t behaving as if black lives mattered in the negotiations they had just concluded with us,” Banks told the Guardian. “It was about integrity and not allowing the company to get away with painting as a space for kindness and positivity when they completely denigrated, abused and retaliated against us.”
Meanwhile, these women’s accusations about Pinterest’s working conditions have shaken the reputation of the tech company, which has a largely female user base and has long been seen as a “nice” alternative to bolder tech companies. from Silicon Valley and technology -culture bro.
Brougher made his lawsuit public in the former employer in August, in a blog post called The Pinterest Paradox: Cupcakes and Toxicity, in which he wrote that although 70% of Pinterest users are women, the company is “run by men with few contributions from women. “
“Pinterest executives, even at the highest levels, are marginalized, excluded, and silenced,” she said.
Following initial complaints from Ozoma and the banks, a group of Pinterest shareholders have filed a lawsuit against the company’s executives, including CEO Ben Silbermann, claiming they allow for a culture of discrimination. The complaint also argued that the culture of discrimination that affected Pinterest’s reputation and its results. It was alleged that Silbermann did not act on the complaints.
“He has repeatedly placed himself in front of the company, surrounding himself with yes men and marginalizing women who have dared to challenge Pinterest’s white men’s leadership clique,” the lawsuit said. This case will be heard in 2021.
A Pinterest spokeswoman said the company did not share details about specific employee situations “out of respect for the privacy of those involved.” She said Pinterest issued an independent review of its workplace culture five months ago, which ended this week.
That board recommended that Pinterest call for the unconscious preparation of each employee’s prejudices, provide more transparency and standardization of their roles and requirements to ensure that diverse candidates are not promoted, and create a centralized team to investigate concerns about work.
In response to diversity concerns, the company “added diversity” to its board of directors by promoting more people of color and by “training for renewal and expansion” of employees. The company also announced a partnership with NAACP to form an Inclusion Advisory Council.
“Pinterest is fully committed to making the changes recommended by the Special Committee of the Board,” the spokesman said. “We appreciate our employees and know that it is our responsibility to build a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment for everyone at Pinterest.”
Banks said that what she and Ozoma faced on Pinterest has become commonplace for black women in the tech industry, who are hired to increase diversity and then fired because they even called for the issues they were hired to address. . She compared their experience to the controversy at Google last week when a prominent black scientist studying artificial intelligence ethics said she was fired after the company tried to suppress its research and criticized its efforts. of diversity.
“That’s why diversity isn’t enough,” Banks said. “This is why representation in technology must be fair. It is not enough just to have a person of color on a blackboard or in a C-suite. We need a representation in technology that reflects the real demographics of our country. “
The issues facing Pinterest come at a time of renewed focus on technology companies, from their diversity issues to their economic strength and lack of regulation under review. Google has faced three antitrust lawsuits in a row this fall and Facebook is facing increasing calls to be split.
“The era of self-regulation in the technology industry is over,” Banks said. “Now is the time for external forces to enter and manage the industry in a way that the industry has refused to do on its own.”