Microsoft Legal Issues

10 Pages 2620 Words

pporters to skip a beat: “New Trouble for Microsoft: Software Giant Facing Discrimination Suit. The suit . . . asks for 5 billion” (New trouble, 2001). Just a few months earlier, the NewsFactor Network announced another discrimination suit, Donaldson v. Microsoft, with the potential for damages in the billions of dollars.
Microsoft Lawsuit Pits Johnnie Cochran vs. Bill Gates: Two of the most influential teams of attorneys practicing in the civil rights arena have joined their suits against Microsoft Corp. alleging a pattern of racial and sexual discrimination against African-Americans and female employees. Hundreds more may join the suit (Durham-Vichr, 2001).
These very similar class-action lawsuits, with the potential for damages in the billions of dollars, claimed that company decisions on compensation, promotions, and job selection were decided by an excessively subjective policy on the part of Microsoft’s managers—more specifically, that decisions were “infected with racial and gender bias” (Durham-Vichr, 2001). Within the space of just a few months, Microsoft was faced with two of the largest discrimination suits in U.S. history.
Neither of these lawsuits, in their original form, were successful for the plaintiffs. However, the threat of an employment discrimination litigation haunts most businesses, no matter how well intentioned their fair-employment practice efforts are. How well intentioned was Microsoft? Company spokesperson, Dean Katz, stated in the strongest terms that, “Microsoft does not tolerate discrimination in any of its employment practices,” and “We are committed to treating all of our employees fairly. We take these kinds of issues very seriously” (Microsoft sued, 2001). Katz went on to explain that African Americans made up 2.7 percent of Microsoft’s domestic workforce and that all minorities comprised 22.7 percent of the company’s workers. These numbers were significant, he said...