A former Activision executive has sued the publisher in California state court accusing the company of age discrimination and violating the state’s whistleblower protection law, as reported by Law360.
The suit was filed earlier this week by a 57-year-old former tech executive who worked for the company from 2014 until being laid off as part of a restructuring in the Activision Blizzard’s Central Tech department last August.
The lawsuit gives several examples to establish that Activision Blizzard discriminated against him, starting with statements Bobby Kotick allegedly made at a leadership conference that the “problem” with Activision Blizzard is that “there are too many old white guys.” (The suit doesn’t say exactly when the conference was.)
If the reason you’re being laid off is your skin colour or your age, no matter what color your skin is or what age your are, it’s wrong.
(Unless you are getting fired for lying about your age and you’re actually under the legal minimum)
He got laid off because he’s old AF and out of touch.
He’s using his skin color as a excuse.
If that’s the case his ex employer will be able to prove he wasn’t competent to do the job anymore but if there’s communications that prove they did it because he’s white or he’s old and that’s the reason he got laid off, then that’s discrimination plain and simple.
Sure, but that sort of “yes black lives matter but all lives matter” doesn’t actually reflect reality. It ignores actual discrimination when we are pretending that white men are historically and presently the overwhelming majority in these fields.
It’s not a “whose lives matter” issue, it’s a labor rights issue. Age and skin colour aren’t valid reasons to lay off someone competent, the company will be able to prove he wasn’t able to do his job anymore if that was the issue.
If you accept that a person gets laid off because they’re white, older or a man then you need to accept that a young black woman can get laid off for being too young, black or a woman, that’s equality.
Skill is not important. Just skin color. Check.
/s
Guy gets fired and is replaced with more competent people.
This guy: “Ah I’m being oppressed because woke companies are trying to remove old white guys!”
If that’s what happened the company will be able to prove it.