Dive Brief:
- Palantir Technologies, a data analytics startup, has been hit with a Labor Dept. lawsuit. The DOL says Palantir engaged in "systemic discrimination against Asian job applicants," as reported by The New York Times and other media outlets.
- In litigation filed Monday, the Labor Dept. says Asian job applicants were put at a disadvantage by Palantir in its hiring process for software engineering jobs. Specifically, the DOL's complaint says qualified Asian candidates were routinely eliminated during the resume screening and telephone interview process. Plus, Palantir, which is a government defense contractor (though it has other clients as well), also tilted its employee referral program against Asians.
- If the government lawsuits prevails, Palantir wold lose its current and future government contracts, which would include those with the FBI and U.S. Army. According to the Times, Palantir’s software provided help to intelligence agencies in finding and killing Osama bin Laden, architect of the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Dive Insight:
Diversity issues within the tech sector have continued to be a nagging problem - one that has Silicon Valley employers (and many others as well) trying to right that ship using a variety of strategies, including technology itself. As the Times points out, what is atypical about this Labor Dept. action is that the discrimination is allegedly against Asians, a group that unlike women, African-Americans and Hispanics has not been known as one suffering from being left out of the tech hiring boom.
Big brand employers including Facebook, Google, Intel and others are hardly immune to diversity challenges, but while many of their efforts are comprehensive, it's an ongoing issue, and a solution may still be years away. Some are embracing new approaches, like employee resource groups, in order to create active discussion about diversity in hiring. There are also industry-wide movements and programs aimed at improving diversity numbers, but each of these processes have been slow and gradual at best.
