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Jalon Hall, a Black, Deaf employee at Google was used in company marketing to promote the diversity and inclusivity of #lifeatgoogle.
In October 2023, Google’s corporate LinkedIn account shared a post about Hall, saying “Jalon is paving the way and helping expand opportunities for Black Deaf professionals”. A similar Instagram post also celebrated Hall: “Thanks Jalon for making #LifeAtGoogle more inclusive!”
Two months later, in December 2023, Hall filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of racism and audism - discrimination against those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Despite filing three complaints to HR, Hall says life at Google described to her in the interview process, and promoted on its social media channels, is far from reality.
A recruiter told Hall, upon accepting a job on an in-house moderation team, that she would have full accommodations for her disability, including a sign language interpreter. Hall says Google repeatedly denied her access to an interpreter for reasons including confidentiality concerns, despite U.S. interpreters adhering to a code of conduct that includes confidentiality standards.
“I felt humiliated, realizing that I would not grow in my career,” says Hall, speaking to WIRED. “I feel hidden and pushed aside.”
She accuses Google’s HR team of denying transfer requests, which she was only able to secure with the help of other Black and Disabled employees, and overlooking her for promotions whilst her colleagues in content moderation rose up the ranks. She also says work to improve sign language translation software, or to make accessibility improvements to Google’s video-conferencing software, has been gear-grindingly slow.
In sum, she paints a picture of tokenism at the tech giant. “Google is using me to make them look inclusive for the Deaf community and the overall Disability community,” she says. “In reality, they need to do better.”
Why is HR still tolerating tokenism?
Emily Hawkins, a spokesperson for Google, says it is “committed to building an inclusive workplace and offer a range of accommodations to support the success of our employees, including sign language interpreters and captioning.” The company is also trying to improve policies and procedures concerning disabilities by recruiting employees to a new working group.
However, Hall’s accounts – echoed by other Deaf employees who have complained about issues with interpreters, and Blind employees who say that internal tools like assignment trackers are not compatible with screen readers – appear to paint a picture of tokenism at Google. Indeed, WIRED’s analysis suggests she is the company’s first and only Black, Deaf employee.
Representation – such as the social media posts about Hall’s contribution to #lifeatgoogle – is important in attracting diverse talent into the workforce and creating a culture of inclusion.
But it is telling that these posts came during National Disability Employment Awareness Month rather than any other time of year, with many accusing employers of taking advantage of dedicated days, weeks, or months like International Women’s Day or Pride Month to engage in performative lip service rather letting their actions speak for themselves.
Hall says three separate complaints to HR were all ignored. When Hall raised a major issue with Google Meet software that meant sign language was not picked up in transcription, she claims she was told by a top engineer that fixing the issue wasn’t a priority. In fact, the complaint had historically raised by customers years prior but had not been fixed.
Yes, there is a huge amount of work to do in creating an accessible, inclusive, and diverse workforce for all, particularly in huge corporations like Google where significant layers of bureaucracy mean progress can be slow.
However, lip service and tokenism are unacceptable mistakes for HR to be making. At the very least, companies shining the spotlight on an employee who represents the diversity of their workforce should at least be asking them how they could make their experience more inclusive, accessible, and engaging, resolving any complaints about discrimination.
Mark Takano, a Southern California representative in the U.S. House who cochairs the Congressional Deaf Caucus, speaking to WIRED, says companies like Google must make sure their words are reflected in accommodations around technology and employment practices.
“When Deaf and hard-of-hearing employees are excluded because of the inability to provide an accessible workplace, there is a great pool of talent that is left untapped—and we all lose out,” he explains.
Tokenism is an unacceptable practice for any HR team and business to practice, but unfortunately, many employers continue to tout diverse employees to appear more inclusive than their employment practices actually are.
As Hall says: “They need to do better.”
