Meta is headed for a legal showdown after judges ruled a discrimination case shouldn't have been dismissed and can go to trial. concerns one Purushothaman Rajaram, who sued the internet titan in May 2022. On the face of it, his complaint is pretty simple.
The complaint alleges Rajaram was not hired simply because he is a naturalized US citizen rather than a foreign worker on a visa. The lawsuit itself doesn't provide much hard evidence for this, though it does claim the position Rajaram applied for went to an$14 million in 2021 to end a fight with the US Dept of Justice over allegations the Mark Zuckerberg-run giant discriminated against citizens by preferring to hire migrant workers.
At its heart, this specific case hinges on US citizens being a protected class in the legal sense, which would mean it's illegal to discriminate against them. It cites 42 U.S. Code § 1981, which"all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every state and territory … as is enjoyed by white citizens," interpreting that civil-rights legislation to mean any and all US citizens can't be discriminated against.