Former Yahoo worker alleges anti-male discrimination
Former Yahoo employee Gregory Anderson filed suit in federal district court in San Jose, Calif. on Monday, alleging that he was unjustly terminated due to gender discrimination and Yahoo鈥檚 already controversial employee ranking system.
Mr. Anderson was a Sunnyvale, California, editor for Yahoo鈥檚 autos, homes, small business, and travel sites. He was in the midst of completing a at the University of Michigan when he was fired in November, 2014.
The Knight-Wallace Fellowship is prestigious, and awarded to journalists and others in the media industry who have at least five years of experience. Several Pulitzer Prize recipients have spent time at the University of Michigan through the Fellowship.
The former Yahoo employee claims that his supervisors were aware of his plans to participate in the fellowship program and approved. According to Monday鈥檚 lawsuit, two of Anderson鈥檚 supervisors, both of them female, signed off on his fellowship plans after a 鈥渓engthy approval process.鈥�
While in Michigan, Anderson continued his work for Yahoo. He intended to produce a documentary for the company about the toxic effects of leaded gasoline on children.
Although Anderson said that he before he departed for Michigan, he received news that fall that he was being terminated because his latest employee rankings placed him in the bottom five percent of Yahoo鈥檚 employees. Every other employee in that percentile was fired.
In his lawsuit, Anderson . He believes that during his time at Yahoo, female management employed gender discriminatory tactics that disadvantaged male employees. He also alleges that Yahoo鈥檚 employee rating system led to what he calls 鈥渋llegal mass layoffs鈥� of about 600 employees around the time he was fired.
Anderson alleges that one of the top company officials, chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt, created a system of anti-male discrimination that shifted the percentage of female managers from 20 to 80 percent over her three-year tenure at the company.
"Savitt has publicly expressed support for increasing the number of women in media鈥�, said Jon Parsons,聽Anderson鈥檚 lawyer, 鈥渁nd has intentionally hired and promoted women because of their gender, while terminating, demoting, or laying off male employees because of their gender."
Anderson also alleges that he was a victim of illegal layoffs. Yahoo used its already controversial (QPR) system to weed out its worst performing employees in mass layoffs.
Under both state and , employers are required to give employees a 60-day notice of mass layoffs. Mass layoffs are classed as such if fifty or more employees are laid off over a thirty-day span. Yahoo laid off 600 at the time Anderson was fired with no notification.
Although Anderson claims that the QPR system is arbitrary and allows managers to use personal bias to rate employees, Yahoo , saying, "Our performance review process also allows for high performers to engage in increasingly larger opportunities at our company, as well as for low performers to be transitioned out."
After the story broke, Yahoo revealed that Anderson for $5 million in mid-January.
"They are posturing,鈥� said attorney Parsons, 鈥淲hen you don鈥檛 have anything substantive to say about the facts, you try to discredit the plaintiff."
If Anderson wins his lawsuit, Yahoo will have to pay former employees $500 for each day that it failed to notify workers of impending layoffs.
Furthermore, according to a , men tend to represent about two thirds of newsroom employees. If Anderson鈥檚 allegations of anti-male discrimination prove to be true, it will mark a shift in prevailing trends in journalists, at least at one company.
The lawsuit is just another in a . A recent Glassdoor study found that only 34 percent of the company鈥檚 employees are optimistic about their employer鈥檚 prospects. CEO Marissa Mayer is due to release a new company strategy Tuesday.
