S.F. Tech Firm Using Race as Factor in Layoffs (Violating EEOC)

(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) Twilio, a cloud communications company headquartered in San Francisco, laid off employees following “anti-racist” principles, meaning that the company will first fire white males to help “marginalized communities,” ZeroHedge reported.

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson announced in a company-wide memo on Sept. 14 that he must fire about 11 percent of his employees because he grew the staff “too fast.”

“Twilio has grown at an astonishing rate over the past couple years,” he said. “I take responsibility for those decisions, as well as the difficult decision to do this layoff.”

But Lawson, a white man, spun the mass firings as a positive development—at least as an ideological victory if not a victory for the “teammates and friends who helped build Twilio.”

“Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities,” Lawson wrote in the memo. “So we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens.”

By admitting that he plans to make layoff decisions based on race, sex, and other innate qualities, Lawson violated the Civil Rights Act’s Equal Employment Opportunity provision.

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, an independent federal agency, has the authority to investigate and punish businesses who discriminate in hiring, firing, and promoting on the basis of “race, color, national origin, religion, sex,” and other factors.

Contradicting their boss’s statement, Twilio’s employees said the anti-racist layoffs will not target white people.

“No one at Twilio has made any mention of it,” an anonymous employee said.

“I’m sure right wingers think this means firing only white people,” another employee said, adding that the layoffs have hit “an equal mix” of races and sexes.

The company has 7,800 employees worldwide, so the two anonymous employees that Fortune interviewed do not provide a representative sample.

Perhaps more information will emerge as former employees come forward, but do not count on the Biden administration investigating Twilio and Lawson for discrimination.