Google Pregnancy Discrimination Controversy

Overview

Google Pregnancy Discrimination Controversy refers to a memo sent by one Google employee internally that went viral after it was re-published by Motherboard in August 2019. The memo outlines discriminatory events and retaliation that had taken place leading the pregnant employee to quit.

Background

On August 5th, 2019, Motherboard^[1] re-published a memo written by a Google manager and now ex-employee that was shared internally the week before. The memo titled, "I'm Not Returning to Google After Maternity Leave, and Here is Why: My Story of Retaliation and Discrimination at Google," outlines the employee's experience of going through Googles HR department to "navigate" a tricky situation in which her director shared some discriminatory remarks about another pregnant staff member with her. After HR was notified of the remarks, the director began retaliating against the manager leaving her stressed and unable to move up in her position as she had been promised before the incident.

Notable Developments

On August 5th, 2019, Motherboard^[4] shared images being posted to the google internal board for meme sharing (shown below). The images directly refer to the memo and their own frustration with the incident.

A google spokesperson provided Motherboard with a statement reading, “We prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy. To make sure that no complaint raised goes unheard at Google, we give employees multiple channels to report concerns, including anonymously, and investigate all allegations of retaliation." Various news outlets like Mashable,^[2] The Daily Dot^[5] and Jezebel^[3] reported on the incident.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References