Google was thrust back into the #MeToo spotlight on Wednesday, when a former Google employee Jennifer Blakely posted an essay on Medium alleging that she had an affair with David Drummond, Google's chief legal counsel.
Though Blakely did not accuse Drummond of sexual misconduct in her essay, she outlines a disturbing power dynamic and describes suffering emotional abuse.
After their son was born in 2007, Blakely was bumped from Google's legal department (where both she and Drummond worked) to the sales department, a field in which she had no experience and consequently struggled. Ultimately, she explains, "I quit Google, signing whatever documents they required because likewise, I wanted to protect him," meaning Drummond.
According to Blakely, Drummond left her in 2008 and began an affair with another Google employee. She then suffered years of emotional abuse, saying Drummond refused to see their son and did not provide child support until he was four years old.
"Looking back, I see how standards that I was willing to indulge early on became institutionalized behavior as Google's world prominence grew and its executives grew more powerful," Blakely wrote.
"For me, the abuse of power didn't stop with being pushed out," Blakely's essay continues. "Afterwards I was pushed down, lest I got in the way of the behavior that had become even more oppressive and entitled."
Drummond said in a personal statement that he was "far from perfect," but he pushed back against some of Blakely's claims, saying that there are "two sides" to the story.
Drummond was the second highest paid executive at Google parent company Alphabet in 2018. Public filings show he received $47 million in compensation, with a salary of $650,000 and $46.6 million as equity.
Read more: The Google exec at the centre of explosive #MeToo allegations is one of the highest paid at the firm, earning $47 million
An October 2018 New York Times investigation reported that three Google executives - Andy Rubin, Amit Singhal and Richard DeVaul - were accused of sexual misconduct. The Times reported that Rubin and Singhal were given multi-million dollar exit packages when they left Google in 2014 and 2016, respectively. The Times also reported that the woman who accused DeVaul of misconduct said a Google human resources official told her to stay quiet (Google disputed that claim).
One week after the Times published its report, roughly 20,000 Google employees participated in a global walkout protesting the company's handling of instances of sexual misconduct.
Read about three former Google executives who have been accused of sexual misconduct below:
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