clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

A (not-so) brief history of gender discrimination lawsuits in Silicon Valley

Sigh. Google’s and Oracle’s latest legal scuffles are nothing new.

Thousands Attend Women's March On Washington
Maybe Silicon Valley could use a Women’s March of its own.
Mario Tama / Getty

It’s hard to name a single major company in Silicon Valley that hasn’t faced charges of sexual discrimination and gender bias.

On Friday, the Department of Labor accused Google of systematically underpaying female employees across its entire workforce.

Less than three months prior, it was Oracle in the hot seat, when the Department of Labor sued the company for paying white men more than others with the same job title. If it loses, the lawsuit could cost Oracle hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts for violating employment law.

And you try forgetting Uber. Earlier this year, the ride-hail company was accused by Susan Fowler, an engineer who formerly worked at the company, for fostering a culture of pervasive sexism and harassment, where certain men were protected when reported to HR because of their “high performance.” And although there hasn’t been a lawsuit filed yet, both Fowler and Uber have lawyered up as the company moves to investigate the claims.

Unfortunately, this year’s cases are nothing new, so here’s a timeline of some of the cases brought against Silicon Valley tech companies in just the past few years. Even though this timeline isn’t comprehensive, it is telling. Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and Qualcomm all make cameos, as does Yahoo, which faced accusations that female leadership at the company discriminated against male colleagues.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for Vox Recommends

Get curated picks of the best Vox journalism to read, watch, and listen to every week, from our editors.