A former Activision executive has sued the publisher in California state court accusing the company of age discrimination and violating the state’s whistleblower protection law, as reported by Law360.
The suit was filed earlier this week by a 57-year-old former tech executive who worked for the company from 2014 until being laid off as part of a restructuring in the Activision Blizzard’s Central Tech department last August.
The lawsuit gives several examples to establish that Activision Blizzard discriminated against him, starting with statements Bobby Kotick allegedly made at a leadership conference that the “problem” with Activision Blizzard is that “there are too many old white guys.” (The suit doesn’t say exactly when the conference was.)
It’s not a “whose lives matter” issue, it’s a labor rights issue. Age and skin colour aren’t valid reasons to lay off someone competent, the company will be able to prove he wasn’t able to do his job anymore if that was the issue.
If you accept that a person gets laid off because they’re white, older or a man then you need to accept that a young black woman can get laid off for being too young, black or a woman, that’s equality.