Two Google employees who spearheaded the walkout against sexual misconduct say the company has retaliated and demoted them
- Google employees walked out of their offices last year in a massive protest of their company's handling of sexual harassment allegations.
- Two of the organizers say Google has retaliated against them by changing their roles and demoting them at the company, Wired reports.
- In response, the two women say they're hosting a "retaliation town hall" Friday for employees to attend and share their own stories of retaliation.
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Two of the women who spearheaded last year's walkout involving thousands of Google employees worldwide say the company has retaliated against them for organizing the protest.
In a message sent internally Monday to some Google employees, and obtained by Wired, Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton said the company had demoted them in their roles, and forced them to give up some of their duties at work.
"This harms people inside the company, and communities outside who bear the brunt of Google's bad choices," the women wrote in their email. "If we want to stop discrimination, harassment, and unethical decision making, we need to end retaliation against the people who speak honestly about these problems."
Read more: Google's chief diversity officer is leaving the company following a string of controversies
Both Whittaker and Stapleton were named in a New York Magazine story as two of the women who helped organize the walkout in 2018 of 20,000 Google employees, who protested the company's handling of sexual harassment cases and past misconduct allegations against senior executives.
Whittaker is the head of Google's Open Research group, and the cofounder of research lab AI Now Institute. Whittaker said in the internal email she was recently told her role would be "changed dramatically," and that she would have to give up her AI ethics research with AI Now Institute in order to keep her job.
Stapleton has been employed a marketing manager at Google-owned YouTube. She wrote in the email that Google demoted her from her position, and her work was given out to others. Her demotion was only reversed after she hired a lawyer and Google conducted an investigation into the matter, Stapleton said.
"My manager started ignoring me, my work was given to other people, and I was told to go on medical leave, even though I'm not sick," Stapleton said in the email. "While my work has been restored, the environment remains hostile and I consider quitting nearly every day."
The two women said in the email that a culture of retaliation exists at Google, and their stories of retaliation "aren't the only ones."
In response, Google said in a statement that retaliation is prohibited at the company, and that the situations with Whittaker and Stapleton were not examples of retaliation.
"We prohibit retaliation in the workplace, and investigate all allegations," a Google spokesperson told Business Insider. "Employees and teams are regularly and commonly given new assignments, or reorganized, to keep pace with evolving business needs. There has been no retaliation here."
Stapleton and Whittaker also wrote in their email they'll be hosting a "retaliation town hall" on Friday to "share our stories, and strategize."
Here's the text of the internal email from Whittaker and Stapleton, obtained by Wired: