Google Denies Race-Related Discrimination After Muslim Boss Causes Jewish Employee To Resign

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Google is asking a federal court in Illinois to dismiss a part of a discrimination lawsuit filed against it by a former employee over his Jewish identity, arguing that the plaintiff failed to show that his Judaism also constitutes a racial affiliation.

Jeff Sklarin, a former senior sales manager at the company, sued Google in January, alleging that he had faced workplace bias because of his Jewish identity. His lawsuit included several claims, among them a claim under Section 1981 of federal law, which bars racial discrimination.

At the heart of the legal dispute is whether Judaism is also a racial affiliation. Google filed a partial motion to dismiss the complaint, seeking to remove the retaliation and racial discrimination claims. The company argued that Sklarin failed to establish in his lawsuit that his “Jewish religious practices also extended to his ethnicity”, adding that “Plaintiff does not allege that Jewish is his race or ethnicity, does not connect his being Jewish to any alleged misconduct and does not allege that his race was the but-for cause of the company’s actions against him,” Google wrote to the court.

The company added that even if the court accepts the argument that Sklarin’s Judaism is equivalent to a racial affiliation, no causal link has been shown between the alleged discrimination and that identity. According to Google, the harassment he described by his manager concerned only his mental health and not his Judaism.

Sklarin spent eight years at Google, joining in 2016 as an Agency Account Strategist. He rose through the ranks steadily, earning excellent performance reviews and substantial bonuses for seven consecutive years. Then came a new manager.

In April 2023, Sklarin began reporting to Syed Rabbi, a Muslim manager. Three months later, the two attended a team meeting focused on the importance of empathy in the workplace. Rabbi, according to court filings, positioned himself as an advocate and urged his team to speak openly about mental health challenges. Sklarin took him at his word.

In August 2023, Sklarin disclosed to Rabbi that he had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and that serious health issues affecting his wife and grandparents were exacerbating his symptoms. Around the same time, Rabbi learned that Sklarin was Jewish.

What followed, Sklarin alleges, was a sharp reversal. The manager who had championed openness allegedly began questioning whether Sklarin could “mentally handle the stress” of his role. Court documents describe repeated comments about the job being “very mentally tough” on him, and a pattern of hostile, non-constructive feedback.

Skarin claims that systematic harassment began, including humiliation, questioning of his cognitive abilities and, ultimately, the worst annual review he said he had received since joining Google despite hitting 93% of his revenue target.

After returning from medical leave, Sklarin asked Google’s human resources department in May 2024 to assign him a new manager for those reasons. But after Google said it could not substantiate his claims, he was forced to resign in September 2024.

Sklarin’s attorney, Linda Friedman, said decades-old rulings support the position that Section 1981 is not limited strictly to race-based claims and also covers mistaken perceptions of race.