A Woman Claimed Andrew Yang Discriminated Against Her At His Tutoring Company

[brooklynite]

[link: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/a-woman-claimed-andrew-yang-discriminated-against-her-at|The Hill]

A woman alleged in 2011 that Andrew Yang, then the CEO of a tutoring company, paid her substantially less money than two similar male employees and abruptly fired her after she pressed him over the disparity, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The woman was paid a termination settlement by the education services company Kaplan, which had acquired Yang’s company, after she said in a letter to Kaplan’s human resources department that he had “acted in a discriminatory manner” and breached a contract by firing her.

“Andrew always spoke positively of my work and my value to the company. This changed only when I approached him about the disparity of my salary compared to male colleagues in similar roles,” the woman, whose name is being withheld at her request because of fear of online harassment, told BuzzFeed News in a statement.

She added, “I believe Andrew fired me as retaliation for asking to be paid a salary that was still significantly less than what he was paying my male counterparts.”

[BuffaloJackalope]

1. These incidents are never isolated. If he did it to one he did it to others.

Where are the others?

[oasis]

3. 2011? I'm pretty sure he's "evolved" by now.

[LongtimeAZDem]

4. If true, it's bad; however, the unsupported word of an anonymous accuser on Buzzfeed

is not enough for me to condemn him.

[brooklynite]

7. This is not an anonymous accuser

BuzzFeed found documents about an actual HR complaint, and is (correctly) choosing not to reveal the complainant’s name.

[maximusveritas]

5. These allegations always come down to the details

The woman and the two men “weren’t in the same role,” the current employee said; the men had more direct reports and did jobs that “pushed the business forward.” The fact that the woman had assigned work to the men was common in a small company, the current employee said, and not indicative that they were working at similar levels.

This is typical of these allegations, where the person alleging discrimination overstates their role, value, and importance to the organization.

[maximusveritas]

9. Sounds like you didn't look too hard into the details

The only info we have from the other woman is her statement that Yang gave her a monthly payment for 2 years. She never claimed it was a settlement, but rather a generous severance given at the time she was being fired.
This woman received a settlement (unknown amount) from Kaplan and they probably just wanted to end the matter as they just acquired his company.

[redqueen]

15. TWO YEARS' SEVERANCE?!

Is this a thing? I'm ... well, gobsmacked is the only word that comes to mind. (Brits just have better words for these things.)

[pnwmom]

8. And yet they paid her a settlement. If she had no case they wouldn't have. n/t

[stopdiggin]

10. nonsense. many actions or cases are settle out of convenience

and I suspect you know that.
(not a Yang supporter .. but this is really garden variety workplace stuff.)

[pnwmom]

11. One settlement, maybe. But two for the same thing -- I doubt it. n/t

[TidalWave46]

12. This is a highly inaccurate statement about how settlements work.

People do pay settlements over situations where they are not guilty of the accusation.

“They paid the settlement so they are guilty.” That is a seriously flawed thought process.

[Celerity]

13. +1

[pnwmom]

14. Why would a business settle two cases like that? They'd be inviting a swarm of copycat suits. n/t

[redqueen]

16. This is just weird.

The woman who wrote the complaint to Kaplan said she twice raised the issue of the pay disparity directly to Yang. The first time, he offered her a promotion to the same level as the men, but did not give her a raise, she said in the letter. The second time, she wrote, he gave her a raise to $102,000, but simultaneously cut her salary by 30% because she had recently moved from New York to Washington, DC, to live with her boyfriend, and was now working remotely. That resulted in an effective pay cut, the woman said in the letter.

Can anyone explain this part?
"gave her a raise to $102,000, but simultaneously cut her salary by 30"

The woman said that she and Yang eventually agreed that she would work at the company until she went to graduate school that fall, and Yang agreed he would continue to pay her at the 70% rate for two months after she began school. But weeks after she pressed Yang on the pay disparity, he called her and fired her, she alleged to Kaplan.

And? What did Kaplan do? Breach of contract is a serious matter. Can't imagine that's the end of the story there.