Google is woefully and willfully ill-equipped to deal with matters of caste discrimination, said Google’s senior manager Tanuja Gupta, in her Goodbye letter following the Soundararajan controversy.
Announcement of a caste-based talk by Google received double the heat on June 2when the company announced that it had cancelled the talk with US-based Dalit activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan. The move angered many workers who in the past spoke about caste-based discrimination within the system.
The letter shared by Gupta, available in the public domain is clear: both she, Tanuja Gupta and Soundararajan fought hard and appealed for the discussion, even after opposition poured in. However, when all efforts failed, Gupta took a final decision to resign from the company.
“My career at Google has come to an end because of this company’s willful ignorance of caste discrimination, the double standards of its DEI programming, the weaponization of confidentiality to avoid accountability, and a normalized practice of retaliation against those who speak out,” said Gupta in the letter.
Aside from detailing her own background as half-Hindu, half-Jain the seven-page letter listed the series of events that took place from April 13 to May 31, 2022. This includes a backgrounder on how two employees in September 2021 approached Gupta and spoke about the caste discrimination they had witnessed at the company.
She decided to hold the meet with the activist considering her organization Equality Labs and its contribution in the Cisco caste discrimination lawsuit.
When this talk fell through, she wrote, “Of all the organizing I have done at this company, I think many are surprised that fighting for caste equity was the lightning rod issue that took me down. But I have an Indian CEO and SVP who both know exactly what’s going on and tacitly approve of everything that’s happened.”
CEO Sundar Pichai is a Tamilian from a dominant caste in India. As per earlier reports, Soundararajan – a Tamilian herself – reached out to Pichai regarding the cancellation but to no avail. Moreover, Gupta said that multiple VPs and Directors confirmed to her that Sundar discussed the need for a new universal vetting process of speakers in his Leads meeting to ensure such things don’t happen again.
Gupta said she hoped that the employees start to understand the magnitude of this issue and the threat that their greater understanding poses to the South Asians in power. For this, she listed a series of measures to disassemble and rebuild the company HR.
She pointedly criticised the vague Google policies and the weaponization of “confidentiality” enforced on every employee to “avoid accountability”. She said that this instils fear among people of further penalties. This makes it difficult to verify information.
Regarding the HR management she said, “The very structure of HR is a shell game. All of these teams use different terms that obscure the fact they are all ultimately in HR. If you’re a Googler [Google employee] who is going through an investigation for the first time, you may not realize that Employee Relations and People Ops are HR. Or that the other teams you’re working with are NOT in HR. And they’re all pointing to one another – or your management – for who has the final say on what.”
As an example, she talked about her own Diversity Equity Inclusivity (DEI) model whose officials are also lumped into HR.From the Chief Diversity Officer to the ERG Advisors and Diversity Business Partners, all personnel report to HR.
Gupta concluded her letter with the acknowledgement that the real victims in this case are Soundararajan and the people who experience caste discrimination every day but cannot speak out for fear of losing their immigration visas or being the target of hate crimes. “The fight for all of them continues whether I’m here or not – I hope you’ll join me,” she said.
