Palantir Sued Over Hiring -- WSJ
September 27 2016 - 03:03AM
Dow Jones News
By Tim Higgins
Palantir Technologies has discriminated systematically against
Asian job applicants since at least January 2010, the U.S.
Department of Labor said in a lawsuit filed Monday.
The Palo Alto, Calif., data-mining firm is one of the world's
most valuable private companies, best known for helping the U.S.
track down Osama bin Laden. It has been been party to more than
$340 million in federal contracts since January 2010, according to
the complaint, and counts the Federal Bureau of Investigation and
U.S. Army among its clients.
"Federal contractors have an obligation to ensure that their
hiring practices and policies are free of all forms of
discrimination," Patricia Shiu, director of the Office of Federal
Contract Compliance Program, said in a statement.
Palantir denied the allegations and said it would defend
itself.
"We are disappointed that the Department of Labor chose to
proceed with an administrative action and firmly deny the
allegations," the company said in a statement. "Despite repeated
efforts to highlight the results of our hiring practices, the
Department of Labor relies on a narrow and flawed statistical
analysis relating to three job descriptions from 2010 to 2011."
The accusation that Palantir discriminated against Asians is an
oddity in Silicon Valley, where big companies including Google
parent Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. have been criticized for
hiring too many white and Asian engineers, and too few blacks and
Hispanics.
The suit, filed with the department's Office of Administrative
Law Judges, threatens Palantir's government business. The office
can request cancellation of the company's federal contracts and
prevent it from receiving future ones.
The Labor Dept. seeks to end the hiring practices and recover
lost wages, interest and other benefits for the affected class.
Investigators who reviewed Palantir's hiring operation found
that Asian applicants routinely were eliminated in the
résumé-screening and telephone interview phases "despite being as
qualified as white applicants," the government said in the suit.
"In addition, the majority of Palantir's hiring into these
positions came from an employee referral system that
disproportionately excluded Asians."
The suit cited several instances of bias. For a software
engineer position, the government said, the company hired 14
non-Asians and 11 Asians among more than 1,160 qualified applicants
of whom 85% were Asian.
"The likelihood that this result occurred according to chance is
approximately one in 3.4 million," the government said in the
filing.
The government said it filed the lawsuit after failing to
resolve the issues through a conciliation process.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 27, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)
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