Twitter has sexist promotion policy, claims lawsuit

Twitter is being sued by a former employee over its alleged gender bias promotion practices.

Tina Haung worked for the social network between October 2009 and May 2014 and claims that she was overlooked for promotion by the male-dominated management team.

The lawsuit reads: “The company’s promotion system creates a glass ceiling for women that cannot be explained or justified by any reasonable business purpose, because Twitter has no meaningful promotion process for these jobs: no published promotion criteria, nor any internal hiring, advancement, or application processes for employees.”

It goes on to say: “Consequently, promotion into Twitter’s senior technical positions is based on subjective judgments, by committees that are comprised of and dependent on upper management at Twitter, and predominantly male.”

The ‘tap-on-the-shoulder’ promotion culture caused Haung to complain directly to CEO, Dick Costolo at the beginning of 2014. This led to her suspension while HR carried out an investigation, which was said to take a week, but which actually took three months.

“Ms. Huang had further meetings with HR and Mr. Costolo, at no time did Twitter communicate the result of its investigation, or provide any meaningful options for moving forward. Ms. Huang was in limbo: she had a job in name only,” says the lawsuit.

This prompted Haung to resign in May 2014.

In a statement responding to the lawsuit, the company says: “Twitter is deeply committed to a diverse and supportive workplace, and we believe the facts will show Ms. Haung was treated fairly.”

Last year, the social media company released its diversity figures which stated that 70% of all Twitter’s workforce are male, with men making up 90% of their technology staff.

At the time the company’s Vice President for Diversity & Inclusion, Janet Van Huysse, wrote in a company blog: “It makes good business sense that Twitter employees are representative of the vast and varied backgrounds of our users around the world. We also know that it makes good business sense to be more diverse as a workforce.”