Judge allows retaliation claims in ex-Google employee’s lawsuit over Israel protest

A federal judge in New York dismissed several claims in a lawsuit brought by a former Google employee who alleged she was fired after protesting the company’s business ties with Israel, but allowed claims that the company retaliated against her to proceed.

Joelle Skaf, an Arab software engineer, sued the tech giant after she was fired following her participation in a workplace protest on April 16, 2024, against Project Nimbus, the company’s $1.2 billion cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government. Google said at the time that employees who were terminated had physically disrupted workplaces and blocked colleagues from accessing company facilities, conduct it said violated company policies.

U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman ruled on Wednesday that Skaf may pursue claims that Google retaliated against her for protected activity by firing her and that the company paid her less than similarly situated male and non-Arab employees. While Google argued the demonstration concerned a political issue and disrupted the workplace, Furman wrote those arguments “may ultimately carry the day” but were insufficient to dismiss the retaliation claim at this stage.

Furman dismissed Skaf’s hostile work environment claim, finding that she improperly conflated “opposition to her political views with opposition to her as an Arab.” He also dismissed her claim that Google denied her a promotion because of her ethnicity.

He further ruled that Skaf’s whistleblower claim could not proceed, concluding that she failed to plausibly allege she reasonably believed Google was violating anti-genocide laws or that she informed the company she believed its conduct was illegal.

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