Yahoo Male Purge Lawsuits

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Overview

The Yahoo Male Purge Lawsuits refers to ongoing legal proceedings filed by former Yahoo employees Scott Ard and Gregory Anderson, alleging that CEO Marissa Mayer discriminated against men by purging the vast majority of male employees from the company with a secretive quarterly review process.

Background

Gregory Anderson Lawsuit

In February 2016, former Yahoo commerce editorial director Gregory Anderson, who was terminated from the company in 2014, filed a lawsuit against Yahoo for sexual discrimination, claiming the CEO Marissa Mayer brought in a quarterly review process that allowed management to terminate employees based on personal biases and stereotyping. Additionally, Anderson claimed the company violated California laws which require companies to provide 60-days notice when terminating more than 500 employees at one time.

Scott Ard's Lawsuit

In early October 2016, former editorial director Scott Ard, who was terminated in 2015, filed a similar suit against Mayer and other female executives at the company for enacting an employee performance-rating system that led to a purge of male employees from the staff.^[3] Ard argued that he had received overall positive performance reviews and stock awards prior to the new quarterly performance review (QPR) system that subsequently ranked him as unsatisfactory.^[4] Additionally, Ard claimed that the new review process shifted Yahoo's editorial management from 20% to 80% female within a year.

Developments

Yahoo's Response

In a statement to the press, Yahoo spokeswoman Carolyn Clark defended the performance review process and claimed that the lawsuit was without merit:

"This lawsuit has no merit. With the unwavering support of our CEO, we are focused on hiring employees with broad and varied backgrounds, and perspectives. Our performance-review process was developed to allow employees at all levels of the company to receive meaningful, regular and actionable feedback from others. Our performance-review process also allows for high performers to engage in increasingly larger opportunities at our company, as well as for low performers to be transitioned out."^[5]

Online Reaction

On October 7th, 2016, articles about the lawsuit reached the frontpage of several subreddits, including /r/news,^[7] /r/technology^[8] and /r/KotakuInAction.^[9]

News Media Coverage

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the Ard lawsuit, including USA Today,^[10] Cnet,^[11] NY Mag,^[12] Breitbart^[13] and CNBC.^[14]