Google loses gender bias lawsuit, owes executive Ulku Rowe $1 million

A jury found Google guilty of sexual discrimination and awarded female Google Cloud executive Ulku Rowe, who filed the complaint, $1.1 million. Rowe’s lawsuit alleged that the company gave higher pay to less-experienced male cohorts and that it later denied her promotions in retaliation for her complaints, both internal and later in court.

Bloomberg Law reports the jury ruled that Google owes Rowe for both punitive damages and pain and suffering. Rowe said before the trial started that her time at Google was “overshadowed by what I believe are unfair compensation and treatment due to my gender.” She alleged that, after the company passed her over for a promotion to vice president that was given to a man who had neither applied nor was qualified and she filed her lawsuit, the company again denied her another similar promotion.

In an email sent to The Verge, Attorney Cara Green of Outten & Golden said that the “unanimous verdict not only validates Ms. Rowe’s allegations of mistreatment by Google,” but that it sends a message that “discrimination and retaliation will not be tolerated in the workplace.”