Blizzard's full response: "The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived. They were required by law to adequately investigate and to have good faith discussions with us to better understand and to resolve any claims or concerns before going to litigation, but they failed to do so. Instead, they rushed to file an inaccurate complaint, as we will demonstrate in court. We are sickened by the reprehensible conduct of the DFEH to drag into the complaint the tragic suicide of an employee whose passing has no bearing whatsoever on this case and with no regard for her grieving family. While we find this behavior to be disgraceful and unprofessional, it is unfortunately an example of how they have conducted themselves throughout the course of their investigation. It is this type of irresponsible behavior from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State’s best businesses out of California."
Classic - “The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today."
Even if that’s true, which lol, I love “we may have ruined any number of women’s lives in the past but surely you can’t hold us accountable for that today!”
“We’re willing to fully cooperate with the state government. Sexual harassment and discrimination isn’t tolerated at this company and we will root out any sources of it and remove them expeditiously”
But I think admitting guilt might not be a good move either way. My question was a bad one anyway since it'd be hard to know if any response would be well perceived.
And? Every large company has sexual harassment to some degree. It's all a matter of whether the company actually responds to it. Saying the accusations are a sham looks much worse then saying you'll investigate.
Some details of the case are a grab bag (I'm not sure I see how "male employees proudly came into work hungover" is an incident of sexual harassment), but there are multiple accusations here that are both far beyond the "every large company" level and clearly implicate senior leadership. They probably should have been less... toxic about it, but a good response can only go so far if the underlying incidents are true. Personally, if I worked for Blizzard, anything other than a vehement denial would have sent me right out the door.
That's not to rule out the possibility that it was just a panicked response nobody thought through in detail, since there's gotta be a big overlap between people responsible for this message and people responsible for stopping sexual harassment.
"male employees proudly came into work hungover" is an incident of sexual harassment when a female employee who did the same thing would be subject to discipline or termination. The men are excused with "well boys will be boys" or "no harm, no foul".
I worked at Blizzard for 6 years and I assure that the female employees in my team drank just as much (and in some cases more) than the male employees and there was no discipline for either men or women.
"We won't comment on ongoing litigation. We are conducting an internal investigation. We will discipline anyone who violated our code of conduct. We are committed to being an inclusive and equitable workplace."
Most of the links or posting doesn't even describe what was the causes, problem and the case is all about. As soon as I saw "suicide" I thought this was very serious. So I had to dig one up myself.
Question for lawyers: could lying in this sort of public statement expose Blizzard to further legal repercussions (fresh criminal offenses, informally irritating the California DFEH and the judges, proving they are in bad faith, etc.) or are they free to make up any bullshit they find useful?
