Hyderabad:Bengaluru-based tech giant Infosys has faced a lawsuit at a US court, with the company's former VP for Talent Acquisition, Jill Prejean, claiming that she was directed to avoid hiring Indian-origin candidates, alongside women with children at home and those over 50 years of age.
The lawsuit was filed in September 2021 at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The court recently denied Infosys' motion to dismiss the plea.
Prejean's lawsuit targets former Senior VP and head of consulting Mark Livingstone, as well as former partners Dan Albright and Jerry Kurtz, who she said 'turned hostile' towards her when she refused to comply with the questionable directives for hiring senior executives.
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Prejean was "shocked to find a rampant culture of illegal discriminatory animus among the partner level executives based on age, gender, and caregiver status", media reports noted, citing her statement.
She "tried to change this culture within the first two months", but faced "resistance from Infosys partners - Jerry Kurtz and Dan Albright" reports quoting the suit stated, adding that the latter subsequently tried to 'circumvent her authority' to avoid legal complications. The court has subsequently ordered the company to issue a response within 21 days of the order, starting September 30.
Notably, this does not mark the first instance of the IT company's alleged connections to hiring discrimination. In 2021, four female employees of Infosys filed a plea with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that the company displayed preferences towards Indian and male candidates.
