Meta Slapped with Lawsuit: AI Layoffs Allegedly Discriminate Against Workers on Leave

A group of 26 Meta employees has initiated a lawsuit against the company, alleging that Meta utilized artificial intelligence (AI) systems to identify individuals for layoffs, thereby disproportionately affecting those who were on protected medical, parental, or family leave. This group is part of the 8,000 employees, approximately 10% of its total workforce, that Meta announced would be laid off in May.

The lawsuit, lodged on a Monday in federal court in Oakland, California, contends that Meta employed various internal systems to determine layoff selections. These methods included internal AI systems, keystroke and activity-monitoring data, AI token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance rankings. The plaintiffs argue that many of these scores and ratings "by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability."

According to the lawsuit, Meta failed to account for protected leave when evaluating employees' performance scores and "did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires." Consequently, individuals who were on protected medical or family leave were allegedly disproportionately chosen for termination. All 26 anonymous employees involved in the lawsuit had taken protected leave and either requested or received reasonable accommodations for a disability. While they have been informed of their layoffs, their official separations from Meta are slated to commence on July 22.

A significant number of these employees had taken pregnancy or parental leave, during which their measured work output would naturally be reduced. Others had taken medical leave; one individual disclosed a "serious health condition and disability" that had been approved by Meta's own provider but was reportedly "discouraged and deterred from taking that leave by a manager" who warned of impending layoffs. The lawsuit further states that Meta offered no accommodation for this employee's disability.

In response to the allegations, Meta issued a statement asserting that the claims "lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI."

The plaintiffs comprise a diverse group, with approximately half having taken leave for caregiving or pregnancy-related reasons. Specifically, eight are women who took maternity or pregnancy-related leave, four are men who took parental leave, and one is a woman who took leave to care for a family member and subsequently bereavement leave.

The lawsuit claims that these layoffs violated several state and federal statutes, including the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Furthermore, the complaint invokes "disparate impact liability," a well-established civil rights principle. This concept, codified in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, dictates that policies or practices, even if neutral on the surface, can be deemed discriminatory if they disproportionately burden a protected class of workers and are not essential for the job.

Despite previous efforts by the Trump administration to deprioritize disparate impact liability enforcement – arguing it undermines "meritocracy" – the lawsuit against Meta highlights that companies remain susceptible to such litigation in the era of AI. Workers retain the right to pursue these lawsuits independently if the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) dismisses their complaints, and several state laws explicitly prohibit disparate impact discrimination.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Meta case contend that the company's "algorithmically assisted selection process, by systematically recording such absences as reduced performance, falls more heavily on women than on men," given that women disproportionately take pregnancy and caregiving leave. Citing Title VII and a landmark 1971 Supreme Court ruling, the plaintiffs' legal team emphasizes the validity of the disparate impact doctrine.

The lawyers stated that the lawsuit primarily seeks to preserve the status quo, aiming to keep the workers employed pending arbitration. This is crucial because, as they argue, "once these separations are final, the harms are irreversible: employer-subsidized health coverage lost during pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and active medical treatment; time-bound leave rights extinguished; unvested equity forfeited; and immigration consequences triggered."