New article: Palantir to pay $1.7 million to settle Asian hiring discrimination lawsuit read more at here http://www.spinonews.com/index.php/us2/item/3360-palantir-to-pay-1-7-million-to-settle-asian-hiring-discrimination-lawsuit

In the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the Dept. of Labor against Palantir Technologies the latter will have to pay nearly $1.7 million  in back pay and stock options to settle charges that it routinely discriminated against Asian job applicants. In addition, it must also hire eight people from among those it allegedly discriminated against.

The charges go back to September last year, when the Department of Labor accused Palantir of rejecting Asian software engineers for jobs even though they were as qualified as white applicants. Palantir also maintained a discriminatory employee referral system..

Palantir issued a statement on Tuesday and disagreed with the allegations. The company mentioned "We settled this matter, without any admission of liability, in order to focus on our work. We continue to stand by our employment record and are glad to have resolved this case."

The lawsuit drew headlines in Silicon Valley, where Asians are well represented in the tech workforce while women, blacks and Hispanics are not.

The lawsuit stems from a compliance review by the OFCCP that found that starting in January 2010, Palantir's hiring practices routinely discriminated against Asian applicants for software engineering jobs. Asian applicants were routinely eliminated in the resume screening and telephone interview phases of hiring despite being as qualified as white applicants, the Labor Department alleged.

“We appreciate Palantir working with us to resolve these issues,” said OFCCP Acting Director Thomas Dowd.

As a federal government contractor that provides software and data analysis to the FBI, the U.S. Special Operations Command and the Army, Palantir is barred from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or against military veterans.

 

The Labor Department said it filed the administrative lawsuit after being unable to resolve the case with Palantir. At risk were Palantir's existing government contracts. It could also have been barred from future federal contracts.