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The lawsuit claims the company condoned a “hostile work environment”
Content warning: the lawsuit contains allegations that some readers might find upsetting. We’ve not described these events in detail, but be aware this article mentions sexual harassment and suicide.
According tothe lawsuit(viaBloomberg), women at the company “almost universally confirmed that working for Defendants was akin to working in a frat house, which invariably involved male employees drinking and subjecting female employees to sexual harassment with no repercussion”.
Male employees would allegedly delegate work to their female coworkers while they played games, as well as “banter about their sexual encounters, talk openly about female bodies, and make numerous jokes about rape.”
Examples of the alleged harassment cases are difficult to read. The filing claims Activision Blizzard wouldn’t deal with a harasser due to his senior position at the company, despite a number of incidents involving alleged groping, harassment and derogatory behaviour. At one point it also claims a female employee took her own life as a result of sexual harassment.
The filing further claims that “numerous complaints” about harassment and discrimination were made to Activision Blizzard’s HR and higher-ups, including Blizzard Entertainment’s president J. Allen Brack. However, these were allegedly “treated in a perfunctory and dismissive manner and not kept confidential” which supposedly lead to retaliation, including removals from projects and layoffs.
“Defendants continuously condone the quid pro quo and hostile work environment,” the DFEH alleges. “This message is not lost on their employees.”
Elsewhere in the lawsuit, it’s alleged that “women across the company are assigned to lower paid and lower opportunity levels”. They claim Activision Blizzard “promote women more slowly and terminate them more quickly than their male counterparts”, and that women of colour were “particularly vulnerable targets of Defendants' discriminatory practices”.
In a statement toThe Verge, Activision Blizzard acknowledged the investigation, but denied the allegations within it, suggesting the alleged archaic behaviours are a thing of the past:
“We value diversity and strive to foster a workplace that offers inclusivity for everyone. There is no place in our company or industry, or any industry, for sexual misconduct or harassment of any kind. We take every allegation seriously and investigate all claims. In cases related to misconduct, action was taken to address the issue.
“The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today. Over the past several years and continuing since the initial investigation started, we’ve made significant changes to address company culture and reflect more diversity within our leadership teams. We’ve amplified internal programs and channels for employees to report violations, including the “ASK List” with a confidential integrity hotline, and introduced an Employee Relations team dedicated to investigating employee concerns. We have strengthened our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and combined our Employee Networks at a global level, to provide additional support. Employees must also undergo regular anti-harassment training and have done so for many years.
“We are confident in our ability to demonstrate our practices as an equal opportunity employer that fosters a supportive, diverse, and inclusive workplace for our people, and we are committed to continuing this effort in the years to come. It is a shame that the DFEH did not want to engage with us on what they thought they were seeing in their investigation.”
Since the publication of the lawsuit, several former Blizzard employees have taken to social media asserting their own allegations and claims of sexual harassment in the workplace that they’ve either witnessed or experienced.
