Google executive fired after rejecting advances of senior female colleague, lawsuit claims
A former Google executive has been fired after he rejected advances from a senior female member of staff, the male executive claims in a lawsuit.
Ryan Olohan said he was groped by Tiffany Miller at an upmarket Manhattan restaurant in December 2019, alleging that she told him she knew he liked Asian women, which she is, and that her marriage lacked “spice.”
Miller, who is the director of Google’s programmatic media, reportedly complemented Olohan’s physique and touched his torso while they were at Fig & Olive during a company get-together, per a report by New York Post.
Following the incident, Olohan, a married father of seven, was promoted to managing director of food, beverages and restaurants and joined a team that included Miller.
The former exec said he was wary of bringing up the incident to his colleagues at first because several of them were drunk at the time — and when he did, they dismissed Miller’s advances as “Tiffany being Tiffany,” according to the lawsuit, filed on Nov. 30.
Olohan, 48, then took his concerns to human resources, which did not take any action. The lawsuit stated that a representative from the department “openly admitted…that if the complaint was ‘in reverse’ — a female accusing a white male of harassment — the complaint would certainly be escalated.”
Instead, Olohan claims that Miller retaliated following his complaint and reported him to HR for unspecified “microaggressions.”
Google did not immediately reply to Fortune‘s request for comment, but a spokesman for Miller denied the accusations against his client, telling the New York Post: “This lawsuit is a fictional account of events filled with numerous falsehoods, fabricated by a disgruntled ex-employee, who was senior to Ms. Miller at Google.
“Ms. Miller never made any ‘advance’ toward Mr. Olohan, which witnesses can readily corroborate.”
Repeated harassment
Two years after the first incident, Miller allegedly reprimanded Olohan while drunk at a Google event in December 2021 — a situation that escalated to the extent that colleagues recommended she sit at the other end of the table.
Miller did apologize, the lawsuit states, but “although Google was aware that Miller’s continued harassment of Olohan stemmed from his rejection of her sexual advances, it again took no action.”
A further incident occurred in April 2022 during a company social event at a Karaoke bar, when Miller once again verbally attacked Olohan while drunk, mocking him and reiterating that she knew he had a preference for Asian women with the prior knowledge that his wife is Asian.
Olohan said he felt increasingly under pressure; his supervisor told him there were “obviously too many white guys” on his management team and in July he was allegedly encouraged to fire a male employee so they could be replaced by a woman.
Olohan was then fired by Google in August, after he’d spent 16 years at the company, for not being “inclusive.” He claims that Google’s Employee Investigations Team said he’d expressed favoritism towards high-performing employees, and that he was “ableist” because he’d made comments on colleagues’ “walking pace.”
The lawsuit accuses both Google and Miller of discrimination, retaliation, and fostering a hostile work environment.
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