SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) – A San Jose tech company is facing a $20 million discrimination lawsuit. A former employee claims he was fired from Lumentum for pointing out biases against Asians.
Andre Wong worked for Lumentum for 20 years. But he says his long career ended with termination after he brought up concerns of anti-Asian bias. Now, he wants to make sure more people are aware of the issue in hopes of preventing it.
“I felt frustrated,” he said. “I felt like I was banging my head against the wall.”
That’s how Wong described what it felt like to watch people he trained rise to leadership positions at the tech firm. Wong created a facial recognition product that brought in nearly $1 billion in revenue. Still, he says he was overlooked for every promotion.
“As that product line became more and more successful I found myself reporting to this revolving door of white managers who I had to train and introduce to my contacts,” he told KRON4.
In 2021, as anti-Asian hate crimes started becoming a more prominent issue, he started talking to his Asian colleagues and realized many had similar experiences. So he co-founded an Asian employee research group to fight for representation and equality.
“Shortly thereafter I became very vocal for representation and to highlight the disparity between the Asians versus the upper management, and shortly thereafter I was terminated,” he said.
Wong says with his years of dedication and hard work, he didn’t see the termination coming.
“It was a total shock, anger, disappointment,” he said. “It was all those feelings and it took me a while to reconcile myself through those feelings.”
Now, he and his lawyer, Charles Jung, have filed a $20 million lawsuit to raise awareness for anti-Asian discrimination.
“It’s a little-known fact that Asian Americans face the lowest rate of promotion to leadership of any racial group,” Jung said.
Workplace justice initiative “Stand with Asian Americans” has recently started collecting data on anti-Asian hate and discrimination in the workplace. One in five of the reports so far involve companies in Silicon Valley.
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Wong already has plans for the money if he wins the lawsuit – he plans to donate most of his winnings to fighting for Asian civil rights.
KRON4 reached out to Lumentum for comment. They have not yet responded.
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