David Hume - Slashdot User

Comment Cut off fingers? (Score 3, Insightful) 130

by David Hume on Sunday June 08, 2008 @02:07AM (#23698577) Attached to: Face Recognition Goes Mainstream For Notebooks

Submission + - Is age discrimination a problem in IT? (ca.gov)

Submitted by

David Hume

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @11:50PM

David Hume writes: "In the published decision in Brian Reid v. Google, Inc., the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District reinstated an employment age discrimination claim against Google. Brian Reid, 52, was employed as an engineer at Google. In Reid's only written performance review while employed at Google, he was described as having 'an extraordinarily broad range of knowledge concerning Operations, Engineering in general and an aptitude and orientation towards operational and IT issues.' The review went on to state that Reid was 'very intelligent,' 'creative,' and 'a problem solver.' Reid's performance rating indicated he 'consistently [met] expectations.' Despite this, he was allegedly referred to as an 'old man,' an 'old guy,' an 'old fuddy-duddy.' and told his ideas were 'too old to matter.' People joked that that the CD jewel case office placard should be an 'LP' instead of a 'CD.' Eventually, Reid was moved into a new position developing a graduate program to retain engineers. Reid was then terminated from the engineering department because he was not a 'cultural fit.' Reid filed a lawsuit against Google for age discrimination. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Google on the age discrimination claim. Reid appealed. On appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed. The Court of Appeal noted that it was undisputed that Reid 'was performing competently in the position he held, both in the Operations and Engineering Departments, and as head of the newly created graduate program.' The Court of appeal concluded 'that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination. Accordingly, the trial court erred in granting summary judgment as to the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh causes of action.' As a result, the case was remanded to the trial court for trial on the merits. Hence the quetion, is age discrimination a problem in IT? Is it really the case that one can be 'very intelligent,' 'creative,' and 'a problem solver," but be fired because one is not a 'cultural fit' due to one's age?"