Chelsey Glasson joined Google in 2014 and rose to management, receiving two “superb” performance ratings, according to her account. After reporting alleged inappropriate comments about a direct report in spring 2018 and becoming pregnant with her second child, she said her manager retaliated, undermined her projects, excluded her from management activities, and indicated that a management role might not exist when she returned from maternity leave. During an extended maternity leave after a cesarean section, Google allegedly offered her three months’ salary in exchange for leaving, releasing legal claims, and signing a nondisclosure agreement. Glasson refused, received what she described as an unfair negative review, and left in August 2019. Google told the EEOC that it had accommodated her pregnancy-related requests and that there was no evidence of discrimination or retaliation.
Glasson filed an EEOC complaint on September 3, 2019, and sued Google; the case was scheduled for trial in January 2022 before the parties reached an undisclosed settlement in February 2022. The litigation also exposed concerns about employer-linked counseling: records from Google’s employee-assistance provider, Lyra Health, were disclosed during discovery, prompting a Washington Department of Health investigation after Glasson complained. Her advocacy with Senator Karen Keiser contributed to Washington extending the pregnancy-discrimination filing period from six months to one year in 2020, protecting employee-assistance-program users from adverse action or unauthorized information sharing in 2022, and enacting a retroactive 2022 law restricting NDAs that silence reports of workplace discrimination or harassment. Google later committed to Silenced No More protections for its employees.
