Until recently, Lisa McCarrick was a loss prevention manager at Amazon, albeit one who alleges she was compensated significantly less than men who held her title prior, and her male subordinates. But in a wrongful termination lawsuit, filed yesterday in her home state of California, McCarrick references a pattern of superior-sanctioned profiling.
McCarrick, according to the suit, “was instructed by her direct supervisor to research the social media accounts of applications for employment to Amazon for the purpose of ascertaining race/ethnicity and gender”—actions she believed were against the law.
Furthermore, “during the meeting in which she was informed of her termination, it was communicated to her that her direct supervisor had admitted to utilising social media accounts for the the purpose of ascertaining race and ethnicity.”
Because the aforementioned supervisor is not named in the lawsuit it’s impossible to know if this individual remains employed by Amazon. The company has not yet replied to a request for comment.
Not included in the lawsuit’s background, however, was what this supervisor hoped to accomplish by compiling this demographic information, or whether it was acted upon during the hiring process.
Amazon has been accused of deploying discriminatory hiring tools which tipped the scales against women. The company has been accused of discriminating against a variety of minority groups, including Muslim warehouse workers and security guards, a transgender employee and her husband, and black and Latinx drivers.
We’ve reached out to the law firm representing McCarrick for additional details and will update if they’re provided.
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