Siteman v. Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, LLC accuses CZI of gender discrimination, unequal pay and retaliation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The lawsuit also includes claims under California’s Equal Pay Act, Unfair Competition Law and the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). Additional individual allegations cite the organization’s failure to accommodate actual or perceived physical disability.
Honey, could you (figuratively) get me a cup of coffee?
Siteman is a director of the security management program within CZI’s central technology division. She is an information security professional and has worked at CZI since 2019. From 2022 to 2024, Siteman also served as a data security consultant to the Biden administration.
She claims that female professionals at the organization, unlike their male counterparts, were expected to perform tasks unrelated to their job duties, such as ordering food and coordinating meetings.
In 2021, CZI reassigned Siteman to report to Girish Patangay, a male supervisor. Thereafter, she and other female employees who reported to him were subjected to ongoing gender-based hostility, differential treatment, and workplace conduct that disproportionately targeted women.
Patangay allegedly made repeated unwelcome, offensive, severe and pervasive comments concerning female employees’ appearance, weight, and perceived personal characteristics. He monitored or referenced female employees’ personal social media activity in workplace discussions.
Siteman alleges that multiple women reported Pantagay’s behavior to HR, which documented the complaints. CZI nonetheless kept Patangay in a managerial role. Instead, the organization initiated a retaliatory investigation into Siteman’s conduct. She was told that raising complaints could negatively affect her professional reputation and performance evaluations.
In 2025, and despite her positive performance scores, CZI withheld a promotion previously promised to Siteman and transferred some of her significant job duties and responsibilities to others. Siteman claims that CZI uses unvalidated, unreliable, and discriminatory procedures for selecting employees for promotion and that female employees with higher metrics were promoted at a slower rate than male employees with lower job scores.
The experience of working under Patangay was allegedly so psychologically and physically harmful that Siteman went on stress-induced medical leave in August 2025. She alleges that CZI has failed to engage in an interactive process with her following her request for accommodations to pursue ongoing treatment. Several other female employees also requested transfers, took medical leave, or quit, the lawsuit claims.
FLSA
The federal Equal Pay Act, which amends the FLSA, prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women performing substantially equal work in the same establishment. It mandates equal pay for equal skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Retaliation, including harassment, discharge, or demotion, is prohibited and actionable under both the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The laws define retaliation and harassment to include:
- Adverse action against a worker for communicating with a manager about compensation discrimination, filing a charge, or participating in an investigation;
- Termination, demotion, harassment, or reduction of hours; and
- Hostile, abusive, or intimidating behavior.
California labor law
California’s Equal Pay Act provides somewhat broader protection than federal law. It requires employers to pay employees equally for “substantially similar work,” regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity. It prohibits wage disparities, bans using prior salary to justify pay gaps, and protects employees who discuss wages. An employer may not retaliate against an employee for disclosing his or her own wages, discussing the wages of others, inquiring about another employee’s wages, or aiding or encouraging any other employee to exercise rights under the Equal Pay Act. Violations can result in lawsuits for back pay, interest, and liquidated damages.
California’s Unfair Competition Law is fundamentally designed to protect the interests of other California businesses. One aspect of this protection is the support it gives to employees’ legal actions against their employers. It enforces the rule that one business cannot gain a competitive advantage over another by breaking the law, as would be the case if it could discriminate against employees on the basis of gender, race or other protected characteristics.
PAGA
READ MORE CALIFORNIA LABOR LAW LEGAL NEWS
California’s Private Attorneys General Act allows employees to step into the shoes of the Labor Workforce and Development Agency (LWDC) to enforce labor laws by suing their employers to recover civil penalties for Labor Code violations. Civil penalties, which may be substantial, are assessed, collected and largely remitted to the state to deter unlawful conduct and encourage compliance with labor protections. Individual plaintiffs may receive up to 35 percent of the penalty amount.
Rules for thee, but not for me
It is a fool’s errand to guess why CZI appears to have chosen to defy federal and California labor laws that prohibit gender discrimination in employment. But the story is a painful reminder that the bad old days of gender discrimination are not yet completely in the past.
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