According to a civil lawsuit filed by a former employee, YouTube stopped hiring white and Asian males for technical positions because they didn’t help the company achieve its goals for improving diversity. The lawsuit was filed by Arne Wilberg, a white male who worked at Google for nine years, including four years as a recruiter at YouTube. He claims the division of Alphabet Inc.’s Google set quotas for hiring minorities. According to the suit, last spring, YouTube recruiters were allegedly instructed to cancel interviews with applicants who weren’t female, black, or Hispanic. They were told to “purge entirely” the applications of people who didn’t fit those categories, reports The Wall Street Journal. A Google spokesperson said the company will defend themselves in the lawsuit. “We have a clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity,” she said in a statement. “At the same time, we unapologetically try to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates for open roles, as this helps us hire the best people, improve our culture, and build better products.” According to WSJ, people familiar with YouTube’s and Google’s hiring practices in interviews corroborated some of the lawsuit’s allegations, including the hiring freeze of white and Asian technical employees and YouTube’s use of quotas. Wilberg’s lawsuit alleges that he was discriminated against by Google based on his sex and race. He says the company fired him after he complained and in the process violated anti-discrimination laws.
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