Yahoo’s (YHOO) CEO Was Accused Of Doing This To Male Employees

A lawsuit has been filed against Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer by a prominent local media executive who was fired from the company in 2015.

Scott Ard’s lawsuit, which was filed this week in federal district court in San Jose, accuses Mayer of leading a campaign to purge male employees.

“Mayer encouraged and fostered the use of (an employee performance-rating system) to accommodate management’s subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo’s male employees.”

Though Ard is now the editor-in-chief of the Silicon Valley Business Journal, he worked for Yahoo for 3 1/2 years until January of 2015.

Ard’s lawsuit claims that Yahoo illegally fired large numbers of workers ousted under a performance-rating system imposed by Mayer, though the allegation was not tied to gender.

Yahoo spokeswoman Carolyn Clark stated “Performance-review process was developed to allow employees at all levels of the company to receive meaningful, regular and actionable feedback from others.”

“We believe this process allows our team to develop and do their best work. Our performance-review process also allows for high performers to engage in increasingly larger opportunities at our company, as well as for low performers to be transitioned out.”

Two other female executives, Kathy Savitt, former chief marketing officer, and Megan Liberman, editor-in-chief of Yahoo News, are also identified in the lawsuit for discriminating on the basis of gender.

“Of the approximately 16 senior-level editorial employees hired or promoted by Savitt … in approximately an 18-month period, 14 of them, or 87 percent, were female,” the lawsuit said.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and have not been compensated for this article.