Activision Blizzard has to face serious allegations again. A former employee accuses the company of discriminating against him because he was an “old white man.”
What kind of accusation is this? According to a January 2, 2024 lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles, former Activision Blizzard employee James Reid Venable accuses the company of discriminating against him because he is an “old white man ” be.
Accordingly, the indictment states:
The Activision defendants retaliated and discriminated against Plaintiff by considering Plaintiff’s age in selecting Plaintiff for firing, and retaliated against Plaintiff shortly after Plaintiff filed a discrimination complaint with the company’s human resources manager. Activision’s stated reason for the dismissal is a pretext. The plaintiff suffered economic harm and mental anguish as a result of Activision’s unlawful conduct.
Additionally, Activision Blizzard’s ex-CEO Bobby Kotick reportedly said at an executive conference that Activision Blizzard’s “problem” was that it had “too many old white men” and needed to hire more young people and people of different colors.
Shortly afterwards, two older, white employees are said to have left the company. One of them was Venable’s superior. However, he suggested Venable for a promotion before he left the company. But instead of Venable, Activision promoted Jonathan Lee, a “much younger” and “non-white employee.”
The statement of claim is available to the New York news site Law360. You can see the relevant excerpts from the document here:
As recently as December 2023, Activision Blizzard paid $54 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit.
Behind the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard filed in 2021 by the California Civil Rights Department (CRD for short) were allegations by the US authority that the company discriminated against and treated women unequally.
Women were therefore paid less for the same jobs and the top positions in the company went predominantly to white men.
In addition, women at Activision Blizzard were sexually harassed. However, ex-CEO Bobby Kotick denied this in an interview in March 2023 and said that they had conducted investigations and never had a systemic problem with harassment:
CEO Kotick (60) says: Activision Blizzard never had a sexism problem – Blame evil activists