A former patent attorney for Apple is suing the Cupertino firm over the discrimination and harassment she says she received after she complained about a male colleague. The case is Whitt v. Apple Inc, California Superior Court, San Mateo County.
According to a Tuesday report from Bloomberg, Jayna Richardson Whitt has sued the company in California, claiming Apple retaliated against her after it learned of her “domestic abuse victim status” by turning her down for higher-level positions. She is seeking unspecified compensation for economic losses and emotional distress.
Her complaint alleges that a white male supervisor “favored Caucasian males and subjected minorities, females, and employees with disabilities to discriminatory treatment.”
She says she was forced to secure her devices, Wi-Fi, and accounts by herself, without help from Apple’s global security department.
Whitt says she shared a video of her male colleague pointing a gun to his head and sharing evidence of “death threats and terrorization” and wrote about the experience in August. But despite sharing the video, Whitt says that Apple left her “defenseless.”
The company shelled out more than $630,000 to protect Chief Executive Tim Cook in 2021 from a woman who stalked him, Whitt said in her complaint. But despite sharing a video of her White male colleague pointing a gun to his head and sharing evidence of “death threats and terrorization,” Apple left her “defenseless,” she said.
Whitt’s complaint alleges that Apple launched an investigation into her conduct before firing her in July. She says Apple HR chastised her for “allowing a personal relationship to interfere with my work, not adequately securing my devices and accounts, and being unprofessional during the investigation.”
Whitt is not the only woman to share their stories of Discrimination, sexism, and other issues inside Apple. Former Apple employees Cher Scarlett and others in 2021 founded the #AppleToo movement to highlight the problems within the company.
Scarlett had filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board but dropped it after reaching a settlement with Apple in November 2021.