Google has settled for $50 million a class-action lawsuit alleging years of systemic racial discrimination against Black employees, the plaintiffs’ lawyers announced, adding that a federal judge granted final approval this week. The resolution, first disclosed in May 2025, imposes three years of court-overseen commitments on one of the world’s largest technology companies while allowing Google to avoid admitting any wrongdoing.
The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by April Curley, a former Google employee, and later joined by other Black workers who claimed the company operated a “pattern and practice” of unfair treatment. The complaint, which received class-action status, alleged that Google viewing Black job candidates “through harmful racial stereotypes,” that hiring managers deemed them “not ‘Googly’ enough” — language the plaintiffs called “a plain dog whistle for race discrimination” — and that interviewers “hazed” and undermined Black applicants. The suit further charged that Google systematically hired Black workers into lower-level, lower-paid positions with fewer opportunities for advancement, and subjected them to a hostile work environment if they raised concerns.
“This case is about accountability, plain and simple,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the plaintiffs, in a statement. “For far too long, Black employees in the tech industry have faced barriers that limit opportunity. This settlement is a significant step toward holding one of the world’s most powerful companies accountable and making clear that discriminatory practices cannot and will not be tolerated.”
Google, headquartered in Mountain View, California, said when the settlement was reached that it “strongly disagrees with the allegations that it treated anyone improperly” and that the company remains “committed to paying, hiring, and leveling all employees consistently.” The agreement specifies that it is not an admission of liability.
In addition to the $50 million payment, the settlement requires Google to perform pay equity analyses, implement pay transparency measures, and limit mandatory arbitration for employment disputes through at least August 2026, according to Crump.
The litigation echoed years of internal and external complaints from Black employees at Google. Among the most prominent was Timnit Gebru, a respected artificial intelligence scholar who said she was pushed out of the company in 2020 after a dispute over a research paper that examined the societal risks of large language models. Gebru’s departure intensified scrutiny of the company’s treatment of Black women in its research ranks and fueled broader industry debate over diversity, equity, and the concentration of power in AI development.
The settlement is among the largest obtained in a workplace discrimination class action involving a major technology employer. It does not resolve ongoing tensions inside Google over race and equity, but it establishes a set of structural commitments — including the arbitration limits and the pay-equity analyses — that the plaintiffs’ representation described as forward-looking guardrails for the company’s workforce of more than 180,000 employees.