A college ranking system has driven Google’s recruiting strategy for onboarding engineers. According to several former Google employees, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are missing from the hiring algorithm, despite the company’s promise of racial diversity and inclusion.
Although there was an alleged push for diversity in recent years, since 2014 the number of Black technical workers at Facebook, Google and Microsoft hasn’t even increased by a single percentage point, and still sits below 4% for all three companies.
Google’s University Program’s recruiting division called HBCUs “long tail” schools, meaning that it could take a substantial amount of time before a high volume of HBCU graduates would meet Google’s qualifications to work in Big Tech.
“Google allocated resources so disparagingly because of how they tiered — and thought of — our schools,” said former recruiter April Christina Curley. Curley, a Black woman in the technology industry, claims she was wrongfully terminated as a result of raising concerns about discrimination against HBCU candidates.
The data and testimonies suggest that minorities and HBCUs are not being prioritized when it comes to the technology industry. This is in direct contrast to Google’s statement in 2014 that claimed it wanted to partner with HBCUs as a way to recruit more minorities.
