The plaintiffs — Dawn-Shemain Weeks, Margaret Hines, and Shannon Schlagenhauf — formerly worked as executive assistants for CMEA and are making 35 different allegations regarding inappropriate sexual behavior. Most of the complaints are direct at John Haag, who served as CMEA’s chief operating partner between 2006 and 2012.

“Throughout the duration of their employment at CMEA, Haag spoke and/or behaved in sexually and racially inappropriate ways. Comments and ‘jokes’ about women, sex, and race were a common and tolerated part of the work environment at CMEA. CMEA’s owner and partners also spoke and behaved in ways that inappropriately injected sex into the workplace,” the lawsuit outlines.

Allegations the three made against Haag include watching porn on his work computer, rude nicknames, explicit and vulgar gestures, and threats to fire the plaintiffs if they “did anything to displease him.”

On April 30, the plaintiffs decided to report Haag’s conduct to CMEA’s three managing directors, who were allegedly aware of it through the reports of other women. They reportedly conducted an investigation through the third-party human resources providers, which uncovered years of the alleged behavior, and negotiated a “buy-out” of Haag’s interest in CMEA’s funds. The firm then took measures to improve the workplace atmosphere, but it allegedly continued to act inappropriately and make comments implying the plaintiffs’ jobs were on the line. Weeks resigned at the end of January.

The plaintiffs are claiming to have suffered significant injuries, trauma, and distress that have adversely impacted their mental and emotional health as well as financial loss. They are asking for a jury trial for all causes of action, general and compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and costs, punitive and exemplary damages, and prejudgment interest on all amounts claimed.

Sexual harassment and gender discrimination are pervasive problems in the male-dominated tech world, and part of this is due to the lack of women in the industry. A study conducted by Stanford in conjunction with the Kauffman Foundation and Women 2.0 found that nearly 18 percent of women in tech had experienced discrimination, and the average tech workplace is not an inviting environment for women and minorities.

Last year, another major sexual harassment scandal hit tech when Ellen Pao brought a sexual harassment and gender discrimination suit against her employer, well-known venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Mistreatment of women in tech extends all the way from executive offices in Sand Hill road to offhand jokes in co-working spaces.

Women represent less than 10 percent of venture capitalists, 3 percent of startup founders, and 14 percent of executive officer positions.

Warning! Not for innocent eyes- read the full suit below:

Haag Case

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

A French court ruled today that Twitter must identify its racist tweeters in France so they can be prosecuted, a decision that the social networking company is still evaluating.

This decision only applies to Twitter users in France, and it follows a slew of anti-Semitic tweets that violate that country’s laws on hate speech. In France, a nation with strict laws against anti-Semitism, no one has ever faced legal action for racist tweets.

French ministers are also facing pressure from anti-discrimination groups in France. In October, the French Union of Jewish Students (UEJF) launched a petition alleging that it is too difficult to report and quickly remove offensive content.

The offending tweets used the hashtag #unbonjuif, which means “a good Jew” and was created to ridicule the Jewish community. Two others — #SiMonFilsEstGay (#Ifmysonwasgay) and #unbonmusulman (#agoodMuslim) — also surfaced in October. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, #unbonjuif was the third most tweeted subject in France on Oct. 10, and continued to be used for several days.

Twitter said today in a statement that “we are currently reviewing the court’s decision.” The company’s lawyer, Alexandra Neri argued, in October that Twitter’s data on users was collected and stocked in California and the French justice system would need to appeal to American judges to hand over this data. But the company agreed to delete the offensive tweets.

During the case, Twitter’s lawyers also made the case that there are numerous different methods to report or flag abusive posts.

Twitter is weighing its commitment to user expression with the potential damage that such objectionable tweets may inflict. It is already making steps by proactively removing terms like “swastika” from its trending topics list, and as AFP reports, it has deleted some of the anti-Semitic tweets from October. Among them:

“A Good Jew can inflate his tire with his nose.”

Twitter’s official position is that it does not moderate content. But it can instantly remove potential child abuse and suspend accounts. Last year, in an unprecedented move, Twitter complied with a request by German authorities to block the account of a neo-Nazi group.

This case may test Twitter and other social networking site’s refusal to mediate content.

Today, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is taking aim at the U.S. Department of Defense and a handful of tech companies that block access to websites with LGBT content.

We’re not talking about adult content here; we’re talking about sites like The Trevor Project (youth suicide prevention) or sites dealing with LGBT health issues and legal rights.

The tech company in question is Blue Coat Systems. Blue Coat helps IT admins block potentially harmful or merely distracting web content by filtering out certain categories inappropriate for workplaces, schools, or other institutions with large networks.

For example, you could choose to block sites about gambling, alcohol, and pornography on a high school’s network. Or you could block bandwidth-sucking peer-to-peer sites on a workplace network.

In a statement on its site, Blue Coat specifically says that LGBT sites do not contain explicit or mature content and “are generally suitable for viewing by all age groups” and contain “reference materials, news, legal information, anti-bullying and suicide-prevention information, and other resources for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people or that relate to LGBT civil rights.”

Oddly enough, Blue Coat’s LGBT category is the only one of its kind that separates a group based on its non-chosen, legally protected status. No categories, for example, group websites with content on people with physical disabilities or people belonging to an ethnic group or even content on women’s issues.

Ergo, LGBT content is the only content of its kind that can be blocked — and blocked it is on military computers, school computers, and other places where legal and health information for gay audiences is not only needed but vital in many cases.

“GLAAD has reached out to Blue Coat Services to discuss its practices around LGBT sites,” a GLAAD rep wrote to VentureBeat via email today, noting that the organization is asking concerned folks to sign an online petition about this issue.

Additionally, the spokesperson continued, the tech community is encouraged to be extra vigilant about site-blocking and to report it.

“GLAAD encourages individuals to report any companies or schools using web-filtering software that blocks LGBT content. Reports can be submitted at GLAAD’s LGBT web filtering page. Of course, all personal information is strictly confidential. We encourage your readers to let us know if their company blocks LGBT webpages.”

In a statement to reporters, DoD officials said, “No filter is perfect, and some sites may have unnecessarily been blocked. The Department Chief Information Officer will work with relevant components to address these situations.”

Image credit: Shutterstock

Like Emperor Julius Caesar, BritRuby was brought down by white males and the Ides of March.

Scheduled for March 15 and 16th of 2013, this event which planned to bring together members of the global Ruby on Rails community for a summit in Manchester, England , is now canceled.

The intent was to hold a two-day conference with 500 developers and 20 speakers. A post on the company’s web page announcing the cancellation focuses on making apologies, rather than the details of the decision, and makes a few vague references to issues of race and gender equality.

“The Ruby community has been battling with issues of race and gender equality,” the post said .”We at BritRuby were well aware of this fundamental and important issue. This was one of the reasons why we encouraged everyone to submit a speaker proposal. Sadly, BritRuby was used as the arena to air these issues on Twitter and this has fundamentally destroyed any chance we had of addressing these issues. Instead the community should have worked together and allowed us to bring these issues to light at the conference. How can the community address these issues if every time someone tries they are shot down and accused of such awful things?”

A foray into the Twitter-verse revealed negative commentary because the speaker line up was entirely comprised of white males. The organizational team responded to these comments by saying they could not find qualified speakers outside the realm of white male. Debate ensued surrounding issues of discrimination, sexism and racism in the technology community, and whether it is better to have a “token female” or people without strong English abilities speaker, simply to diversify the attendees.

The decision to cancel the entire event seems dramatic, considering it its based primarily on a few negative tweets. Now, no-one of any background will be able to benefit from the events’ intention, which was to “to encourage Ruby developers to unite and create a community, which would allow such to network, exchange ideas and provoke innovation for the future of Ruby. We wanted to encourage jobs and allow companies the opportunity to meet the community and primarily boost the UK developer industry.”

It is quite a blow, for a startup economy that is just starting to take off. Perhaps the founders of BritRuby should pivot and hold an all-female hackathon. Than for BritRuby 2014, they may have a better chance.

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Last week was the worst ever for social gaming company Kixeye. A former black contractor wrote in a Tumblr post (since taken down but reprinted here) that he was subjected to racist comments during a stint at the company earlier this year. Will Harbin, chief executive of the hard-charging San Francisco company, said he investigated the matter and fired three employees and a manager for behavior that didn’t meet standards.

Harbin said there were a few “bad apples” who had created a “micro culture” at Kixeye that was unacceptable and embarrassing, but most of the 300-plus employees are hard-working and conscientious. He said the behavior the contractor described — the parts that have been verified as true — are not defensible. Kixeye only has around  9.2 million monthly active users on Facebook. But it’s one of the most profitable game companies on the social network because it makes free-to-play hardcore games such as War Commander and Battle Pirates that monetize exceedingly well.

Harbin granted us an exclusive interview to discuss what happened. We discussed not only the incident, but the culture of racist comments that travels in some circles in online games when you play anonymously with strangers. Here’s an edited transcript.

GamesBeat: So tell us what happened and what you did.

Will Harbin: Tuesday, I was alerted to a Tumblr blog post by a former contractor of ours who worked in our [quality assurance (game testing)] department. He accused us of racial discrimination. He included quotes. Some of the names were changed, but it was enough for me to go in and figure out who this person was and where they worked on the team. So I started there and immediately did a personal investigation.

GamesBeat: He had not come to you before that?

Harbin: Definitely not.

GamesBeat: So that was the first time you’d (ever heard these allegations?)

Harbin: He was here a few months ago. As far as I know, the blog was posted on Tuesday. Anyway, through the investigation, number one, there was no record of any complaint. Number two, obviously I started with the manager of that group, his manager. While I found that the vast majority of the things in the blog to be suspect in terms of accuracy, I did find examples of very inappropriate behavior and unacceptable behavior according to Kixeye standards.

I immediately terminated this person’s manager. Over the next 24 hours, as I conducted more interviews, I did find that there was basically a small team … a micro-culture had effectively developed within Kixeye of this handful of people who had demonstrated some embarrassing, offensive conduct and behavior that I didn’t think was acceptable. I don’t think these people were racist or discriminating. It was a multi-cultural and multi-gender group. Multi-everything. But…

GamesBeat: It didn’t meet your standards?

Harbin: No. It didn’t meet the standards of Kixeye. Or any other company that I’m aware of. So I terminated them. That was the initial, immediate resolution around that and our investigations. Also, just to make sure that we have the full story, my vice-president of HR is working on it, and we’ve hired an outside investigator to come in and conduct interviews and do a very thorough investigation around the claims. So the thing was posted. It’s unfortunate that it was made public. I certainly don’t want people to think that this is indicative of a broader cultural problem at Kixeye.

GamesBeat: You have an aggressive company and an aggressive business. You want people to be doing kick-ass work producing kick-ass games. But there’s a difference between that…

Harbin: …and racist and offensive behavior. Those are completely different things. One is a matter of taste and a matter of marketing direction, so to speak. The other is a matter of law. And it’s not just law. I don’t want people to be uncomfortable working here. I want this to be a very comfortable working environment. I want everyone to love waking up and coming to the office every day, just like me. I want people to remember this as the best job they’ve ever had, and I want other people to come in here and have the best job they’ve ever had. We just want to make great games and great products, and we want to have great people working on them. I think a lot of people through this are confusing our external marketing message with our internal company culture. We’re a very diverse, multi-cultural company that has come together around one passion, which is making great games. That’s it.

GamesBeat: It’s not a frat house with inappropriate behavior all the time.

Harbin: Absolutely not. This is the furthest thing from any bro-gramming, frat house type of culture. I’d encourage anyone who’s made those kinds of allegations to come around and look at the office. We’re all nerds. Maybe people confuse our recruiting videos, or some of the confidence and the audacity to call out hypothetical competitors like that, for some sort of bro-tastic culture. I don’t know how to describe it. But I think people confuse the marketing message with how our internal culture works here.

GamesBeat: Speaking of confusion and what could have been going on in the minds of some of these people. … I think of Xbox Live and how there have always been racist and sexist comments you hear from people that you play with online. The confusion might be that that’s okay in the workplace…

Harbin: I can’t control what people say in their free time. I don’t have visibility into what people do in their free time. But we’ve made it very clear that sort of behavior is not acceptable in the workplace, during working hours. That is exactly why I terminated the four people I did.

GamesBeat: And you have some training that’s started as well?

Harbin: We already had training started a while ago. Obviously, we’re doing more now. We started by rolling out harassment training, sensitivity training, diversity training, and so on to the managers. Now we’re branching that out to the individuals as well and making sure that’s reinforced. In addition to that, it’s not just about what not to do. We want to be sure that people are good managers. We’re augmenting that with good quality leadership and management training. We’re helping people figure out how to create a good, open, accepting working environment, versus trying to just say, “Here’s what not to do. Here’s how you avoid a lawsuit.” That’s not what we’re aimed at. We’re trying to make a great working culture.

GamesBeat: You’re trying to stay a startup, as well as become a bigger company…

Harbin: Well, there are good things and bad things associated with a startup. We want to maintain high efficiency and productivity and fun. Those are things that you typically find in a good startup, and we want to keep them here. We can combine some of the best of both worlds. We want to take the good from a larger company and the good from a startup and combine them in one. That’s why we keep smaller game teams. It’s easier to manage. People have more clarity. There’s better communication and more transparency. People have more responsibility.

GamesBeat: You’ve communicated more than you have to, and more than most companies do when they’re in this sort of a situation. What’s the reasoning behind that? Why do you want to say as much as you have?

Harbin: I care a lot more about perception in the industry and perception of our employees. I do care what people think about Kixeye. I care what potential recruits and candidates think about Kixeye. I care about what the friends and family of employees at Kixeye think. I think I can do it in such a way as to be transparent and communicate with the public about things like this, without being legally risky.

We have a great company here. It’s well-run. There are going to be hiccups along the way given how fast we’ve grown, but we are doing everything in our power to make sure it’s a better place every day. It only took us 24 hours to swiftly and appropriately react. I don’t think many companies of our size can say that they’ve done something like that. I’m not going to play by any kind of standard PR handbook and just deny and defend and try to be political and distract people. I like to be direct.

If someone alerts me to a problem, I’m going to investigate it, and if it’s a problem I’m going to take care of it. Again, the reason we terminated these people was not for discrimination. We terminated them for offensive and unacceptable behavior at Kixeye. Someone alerted me to a problem, I investigated, I came to a resolution, and I did this extremely quickly. That investigation is ongoing.

GamesBeat: You have an independent person looking at this now?

Harbin: Yeah. I think one other point to clarify a bit more, just to put a sharper point on it: we did it because it was the right thing to do. It would have been easier, and in fact we were advised, to defend the position and stay out of the press. We felt that it was extremely important to go directly to the root, and to communicate that.

GamesBeat: Just for the record, there is no litigation so far?

Harbin: No.

GamesBeat: Is there anything else to clarify?

Harbin: No. Again, my hope is that we can show more people what a great culture and working environment we have here, as demonstrated by the people here and the products we’re creating. You can’t control every aspect of every person, but as soon as we find out about problems, we deal with problems. We’re committed to self-improvement in all aspects of the company. We’re also scaling extremely rapidly, and as we grow our teams, it’s important to make sure that all the management practices are in sync. This is obviously an example of an area that we need to improve. One team went off in their own direction, and the minute that we caught wind of that fact, it was calibrated.

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Reuters reports that lawyers for the venture capital firm tried to move to arbitration last month, but Kahn denied it today, saying that there was no agreement between Pao and Kleiner Perkins.

Source: Kleiner Perkins

Ellen Pao

The refusal essentially means that the case will now wend its long way very publicly through the California legal process. Arbitration is faster and less formal than a lawsuit. Most importantly for Kleiner Perkins, however, arbitration is also private … meaning that the firm would not simultaneously face the fear of being tried in the courts of law and of public opinion.

UPDATE July 10, 12:20 PM: statement from a Kleiner Perkins representative:

KPCB is encouraged by Judge Kahn’s willingness to hear our arguments on third party beneficiary and equitable estoppel claims.  The firm will file its motions by July 13th to be heard in a supplementary hearing on July 20th.   KPCB continues to believe it has strong arguments and precedent to move the matter to arbitration.  Ms. Pao, like other partners, signed a variety of standard agreements requiring, among other things, that all disputes be resolved through arbitration.  We expect arbitration to be a more efficient and speedier dispute resolution process than trying a matter before a jury years down the line in the San Francisco Superior Court.

The refusal by Pao’s lawyers likely means that Pao’s camp intends to press the discrimination suit vigorously, putting pressure on her former employer. That’s a bad sign for Kleiner Perkins.

On the other hand, the news that Kleiner Perkins was attempting to settle via arbitration could signify that the venture firm is not entirely confident about the eventual results of a legal trial. The company has already categorically denied any and all culpability in the case.

In any case, what we know for sure is that we’ll hear a lot more about this case before it’s finished.

Image credit: Lasse Kristensen/ShutterStock

My two daughters are now in college and have put their toes in the working world with summer jobs. As they’ve grown older, they’ve heard their parent’s advice about women in the workforce.

This post is not advice. Nor is it a recommendation of what you should do. It’s simply my interpretation of what I have observed. Our circumstances were unique, times have changed, and your conclusions and opinions will most certainly differ.

When my girls were younger and started to play soccer, I used to remind them, “Make sure the people on the field aren’t carrying sticks – because if they’re playing field hockey while you’re playing soccer, you’re going to get hurt.”

As they got older, they understood I wasn’t only talking about sports but that I was trying to teach them how to figure out the rules of any game they were about to play – and that included the workplace.

My advice to our daughters about women in the workplace has been pretty simple:

• The language of business is about winners and losers. Bosses who read Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” as a guide to business strategy or “Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun” are unlikely to create a culture of collaboration.
• There are implicit rules of competition and collaboration in companies.  It’s not that anyone is hiding a secret rulebook; it’s just that no one has articulated the rules.
• In most companies, men set these rules. Again, nothing secret here, but men don’t realize that they behave and think differently. They don’t have to explain the rules to other men, so it never occurs to them to explain the rules to women.
• As women, they will be expected to perform to boy’s rules as defined in their workplace: This means they need to spend the time understanding what the rules are in their company and industry. If they don’t, they will find others who are less competent but more adept at playing the game getting promoted instead of them.
• Women can be equally competitive if they desire. It’s not a question of competency, or a skill only boys have. If they want to succeed by competing, they can. They just have to learn the rules and practice them.
• Find mentors then become one. In every organization or industry there’s someone who’s figured out the rules. Seek them out and know what they know. By the time you do, it’s your turn to mentor someone else.
• Collaboration can make you a stronger competitor. The irony is that organizations that collaborate are more effective competitors. When they reach a position of authority, use their instincts to build a fearsome organization/company.
• If they prefer to collaborate and don’t want to play by boy’s rules, they need to understand what their career choices are. There are plenty of other ways to be a productive member of society other than a position on a corporate org chart.
• Understanding the rules and career options doesn’t mean the rules are right or they have to accept them as the only career choices.  They can make change happen if they so desire. But they need to understand the personal costs of doing so.
• Some find the idea of gender differences uncomfortable. Having fought to have men and women be treated equally, discovering that there may be gender specific hard-wiring for behavior sets up cognitive dissonance. Some simply won’t accept that there are workplace gender differences.
• I may be wrong. Perhaps I misunderstood what I’ve seen or that time has changed the workplace significantly. Take this advice as a working hypothesis and see if it matches your experience.

Time will tell whether we gave our daughters good advice.