Google parent company Alphabet Inc’s Chief Legal Officer has responded to allegations that he had a child with a subordinate and subsequently emotionally abused her. Executive David Drummond says “there are two sides to all of the conversations and details.”
Buzzfeed reports that Google-parent Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, has given it a personal statement in which he stated that he was “far from perfect” but refused to apologize for an affair he had with a subordinate during his time working at Google. Drummond, who is one of the highest-paid executives at Alphabet, stated that he has a “very different view” of the claims made by a former paralegal on Drummond’s team, Jennifer Blakely.
Blakely said in a blog post that Drummond fathered a son with her while he was married before abandoning her and emotionally abusing her. “The abuse of power didn’t stop with being pushed out,” Blakely wrote, in reference to her departure from Google. “Afterwards I was pushed down, lest I got in the way of the behavior that had become even more oppressive and entitled.”
Drummond’s statement on the matter notes that it is “not a secret” that he and Blakely had “a difficult break-up 10 years ago,” and while he “regrets” his part in that breakup, he did not outline what that included.
“Her account raises many claims about us and other people, including our son and my former wife,” he said. “As you would expect, there are two sides to all of the conversations and details Jennifer recounts, and I take a very different view about what happened. I have discussed these claims directly with Jennifer, and I addressed the details of our relationship with our employer at the time.”
Drummond claimed to never have been involved in any other extramarital relationships, stating: “Other than Jennifer, I never started a relationship with anyone else who was working at Google or Alphabet. Any suggestion otherwise is simply untrue.” Drummond’s full statement was tweeted by BuzzFeed News reporter Ryan Mac, who noted that Drummond is not apologetic:
Here is David Drummond’s full statement. He does not say sorry. pic.twitter.com/P4fJgerN9F
— Ryan Mac 🙃 (@RMac18) August 29, 2019
Drummond finished his statement saying: “I know Jennifer feels wronged and understand that she wants to speak out about it. But I won’t be getting into a public back and forth about these personal matters.”
Google has long been plagued by allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment at the firm, resulting in a mass walkout in 2018 when thousands of employees worldwide walked out of their offices in protest of Google’s protection of alleged sexual harassers. From Breitbart News’ article in November of 2018:
Employees from New York City, Dublin, London, Singapore, Toronto, Berlin, and Cambridge all joined in with the protest — which Google executives reportedly tried to quell — with employees providing a list of demands to Google executives. Further protests are expected at Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters.
The demands included, “An end to Forced Arbitration in cases of harassment and discrimination,” “A commitment to end pay and opportunity inequity,” “A publicly disclosed sexual harassment transparency report,” “A clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously,” and, “Elevate the Chief Diversity Officer to answer directly to the CEO and make recommendations directly to the Board of Directors.”
“I’m walking out tomorrow with thousands of my coworkers because I believe it’s past time for this abuse to stop,” declared Google engineer Amr Gaber in a Twitter post, Wednesday. “It’s clear neither government nor business leaders will fix this on their own. We have to do this ourselves y’all.”
As previously reported, Google allegedly gave former executive Andy Rubin a “hero’s farewell” and a “$90 million exit package,” despite concluding that sexual harassment allegations against him were “credible”– a move which prompted the walkout protest on Thursday.
Rubin denied the allegations, which he claimed contained “numerous inaccuracies” and “wild exaggerations.”
In a comment to Buzzfeed, one Google employee involved with the protest claimed to be “furious” at Google’s decision, adding, “I feel like there’s a pattern of powerful men getting away with awful behavior towards women at Google‚ or if they don’t get away with it, they get a slap on the wrist, or they get sent away with a golden parachute, like Andy Rubin. And it’s a leadership of mostly men making the decisions about what kind of consequences to give, or not give.”
Breitbart News will continue to report on Google’s corporate culture.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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