On Wednesday, May 20, Jeremy Bernier was laid off from his software engineering job at Meta. He immediately took to social media to accuse the Big Tech giant of discrimination against non-Chinese.
Starting that day, he posted on social media about Meta and the discrimination he allegedly experienced and watched.
“At Meta, 90% of my coworkers were Chinese, and non-Chinese were routinely excluded, disadvantaged, and targeted for layoffs.” he said in his X post, adding, “6 out of the 7 layoffs I observed targeted non-Chinese despite non-Chinese being the vast minority. Certain orgs like ads and MRS are notorious for being Chinese dominated.”
The 2012 Virginia Tech graduate described alleged discrimination in the workplace environment as well.
“The most blatant and obvious way that non-Chinese are excluded is that Chinese primarily speak Mandarin at work. I’m not talking about one-off conversations, I’m talking about every single conversation.”
Bernier said that while his coworkers did speak English in formal meetings, afterwards and in informal team gatherings they would speak only Mandarin.
“Lunch was another place where non-Chinese were blatantly excluded,” Bernier added. “The Chinese would always get lunch together and never invite us (except for one of them who occasionally would, though at some point stopped).”
“I think Americans would be outraged if they knew that their own citizens were getting marginalized and laid off at their own companies, while Chinese promote themselves up, conquer entire orgs, and reap millions [in pay and bonuses],” said Bernier
This wasn’t the first time Meta faced these types of accusations.
A 2020 Project Veritas story exposed an alleged confidential Facebook memorandum that suggested a bias toward Chinese employees. According to the memorandum, “Priority may be given to H-1B applicants from China and Korea to foster larger communities of diverse workers at Facebook.”
The allegation itself was founded in the idea that Facebook, or parent-company Meta, discriminates based on national origin in employment prioritization in a way that is illegal.
If this accusation is true, it would violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which states in this case that it is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an individual based on their national origin.
Facebook denied that the memorandum was authentic, according to Project Veritas.
Has Globalization ‘Gone Too Far’?
Bret Swanson, the Director at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Technology and the Human Person, commented on Bernier’s allegations.
Swanson told the Daily Signal, “Immigrants have made major contributions to Silicon Valley for decades. But as with globalization and outsourcing, U.S. firms might have to consider whether they’ve gone too far.”
He described that the question at hand isn’t the contributions of immigrants to Meta itself, but the employment discrimination that has allegedly been experienced firsthand by Jeremy Bernier.
Bernier has received pushback from some of the 2.7 million people that saw his X post. Comments included:
“You are a coward spreading Chinese hate on x. You had any issue you could have spoken to your manager first and escalated until reaching Zuck. Didn’t your company say feedback is a gift?”
He addressed backlash in his X post by saying, “I do genuinely believe that most (Chinese people) are good people and not deliberately trying to exclude others. But regardless of intent, the result is that non-Chinese get excluded.”
Meta has since declined to comment on Bernier’s claims.
