A job discrimination lawsuit against domain registrar GoDaddy is scheduled to begin Tuesday morning.
The lawsuit was brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and charges GoDaddy with national origin and religious discrimination. The complaint charges that GoDaddy denied a management position to Youssef Bouamama, a Muslim Moroccan who speaks Arabic. The agency said Go Daddy fired him because of his Moroccan national origin and religious affiliation, according to an article on The Business Journal of Phoenix web site.
It is unclear whether GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons knew Bouamama or had any interactions with him, but it will be interesting to see if the EEO tries to suggest that GoDaddy and/or Parsons created a culture of discrimination. Parsons is an outspoken leader on all things business and politics. He has even blogged about torture. Parsons also doesn’t shy away from sex, as evidenced on several occasions. First, there was an article in Business 2.0 that featured Parsons and had him commenting about GoDaddy’s models. Second, many of GoDaddy’s ads include risque models. Third, GoDaddy briefly created a site at GoDaddyGirls.com that featured its models along with a woman who was apparently from the company’s marketing department.
Although the current case has nothing to do with sex discrimination, I wouldn’t be surprised to see such a case in the future.
Editor says
The jury found in favor of GoDaddy on 5 of 6 counts. The only one it found against GoDaddy was retaliation. GoDaddy will appeal.
Editor says
The jury awarded $390k in damages to the employee for retaliation.