David Brown, who filed the lawsuit, is jointly employed by the Alphabet Inc unit and security company Allied Universal. Brown is seeking unspecified monetary damages for alleged physical and emotional harassment at Google’s LA offices based on both his race and sexual orientation. The suit claims the harassment took place between 2014 and last year.
Brown’s supervisor, Henry Linares, allegedly accounted for much of the harassment, including “grabbing him on the buttocks, kicking him in the groin, throwing him through a window head first and brutally grabbing his nipples." According to the filing, Linares was fired for other reasons this year.
Over a series of messages last year regarding items missing from Google’s offices, Google's senior manager for global community operations, Rus Rossini, sent Linares the message “strip searches for all.” According to the lawsuit and a screenshot of the exchange seen by Reuters, the supervisor replied, "David is going to love that," with Rossini then saying, "Tell David to bend over." The supervisor, who shared the screenshot with Brown, responded, "hahah I'll tell him you said Hellooo."
Following the death of George Floyd last year, many major companies stepped up efforts to create more inclusive and safe workplaces, including Google. However, employees at Google, including over 2,000 who signed an open letter on the issue back in April, have said the tech giant fails to sufficiently hold perpetrators of racism and bullying to account.
