DOL accuses Google of systemic gender compensation disparities News
DOL accuses Google of systemic gender compensation disparities

The US Department of Labor (DOL) [official website] on Friday accused [Guardian report] Google [corporate website] of engaging in compensation discrimination against female employees. As part of an ongoing investigation, DOL Regional Director Janette Wipper stated, “we found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce.” Google denied the allegation, and the investigation will continue. These allegations came during a hearing in an ongoing lawsuit [press release] filed [complaint, PDF] by the DOL against Google in January arising out of an audit for federal law compliance review.

Just last month the US District Court for the Northern District of California rejected [JURIST report] a settlement in a class action lawsuit between non-Gmail users and Google based on an allegation that Google illegally scanned the e-mails of non-Gmail users in their correspondence with Gmail users for targeted advertising purposes. In January, the DOL filed a lawsuit JURIST report] against Oracle America, Inc. alleging the leading technology company has a systemic practice of paying Caucasian male workers more than their counterparts in the same job title. The Secret Service [JURIST report] has also faced employment discrimination allegations and in January agreed to a $24 million settlement with 10 black agents who accused the agency of racial discrimination in a 2000 federal lawsuit

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.