Woman Repped by Pao Lawyers Is Suing Facebook for Sexism

A man walks past a mural in an office on the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, Calif., June 11, 2014. Jeff Chiu/AP

A former Facebook employee is suing the social networking giant for gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and sexual harassment—and she’s using the same lawyers as Ellen Pao.

Chia Hong filed the suit Monday in San Mateo County Superior court. She claims that she was harassed during her three years at the company and that bias played a role in her termination.

According to her suit, Hong was “belittled at work” and asked to complete tasks that were not part of her job description, such as “organize parties and serve drinks to male colleagues.” Additionally, she was “admonished” when she took time off to visit her child at school, which she says was her right under company policy. And when she was eventually fired in October 2013 after more than three years at the company, she “was replaced by a less qualified, less experienced male.”

Hong said she received positive feedback roughly every six months during her time at Facebook, intimating the termination was a surprise.

Pao Case the First of Many?

Hong is being represented by Lawless & Lawless, one of the firms that is representing Ellen Pao in her closely-watched sex bias lawsuit against her former employer, influential venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The trial in Pao’s case, now in its fourth week, has generated enormous interest in Silicon Valley and beyond—attention that may embolden more individuals in minority groups to air their own grievances against the diversity-challenged tech industry.

But most discrimination suits, including Pao’s, are usually complex and layered, and rarely ever slam-dunk cases. Bringing the case to light is only the first step—Hong will still have much to prove if the case goes to trial, as the complexities of Pao’s case have shown. Facebook, for its part, has adamantly denied the allegations.“We work extremely hard on issues related to diversity, gender and equality, and we believe we’ve made progress,” a spokesperson emailed in response to an inquiry from WIRED. “In this case we have substantive disagreements on the facts, and we believe the record shows the employee was treated fairly.”