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Claims she was fired after highlighting potential racial discrimination.
Bungie is being sued by a former HR manager who claims she was fired from the Destiny 2 developer after flagging a potential case of racial discrimination with her supervisors.
As reported by IGN, former Bungie HR manager Ingrid Alm – who joined the studio in May 2022 – filed a complaint in the state of Washington earlier this year, citing retaliation and wrongful termination. Alm alleges she was fired from Bungie after being asked to investigate a Black employee, referred to as “James Smith” in court documents, who responded by saying he felt he was being racially targeted by his supervisor.
As a result, Alm recommended Smith’s supervisor receive diversity training, but says her suggestion was met with “hostility and denial” – it’s claimed she was told the supervisor had “been there for a long time” and was “highly regarded” – and her recommendation was denied.
After that incident, Alm alleges Bungie suggested terminating Smith, but says she disagreed on the grounds of racial bias. She claims she then sought advice from Bungie’s director of equity and inclusion, Dr. Courtney Benjamin, who felt terminating Smith would be “too risky considering the evidence”, and recommended a written warning would be more appropriate.
Alm alleges her own supervisor was “extremely angry” when it was discovered she had approached Benjamin, and that she was later, in September, told to look for an “off-ramp” to leave her job. Shortly after, Alm says her email and computer access was cut off, with no explanation given by her supervisor. It’s claimed she was eventually informed the company had accepted her resignation, despite having neither resigned nor wanted to, but Alm says she refused to sign a document confirming she had “voluntarily resigned”. An email to Bungie’s chief people officer Holly Barbacovi about the situation is said to have gone unanswered.
IGN says Bungie denies all of Alm’s claims in a response, but that the studio offers no alternative account of Alm’s events, instead only saying it “lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth or falsity of the allegations.”
Alm is suing Bungie for retaliation and wrongful termination, and seeking compensation for lost past and future wages, damages for emotional distress, and attorney fees. The trial is set to be heard before a jury on 22nd January next year.
Back in December 2021, a report into Bungie by IGN alleged “overt sexism, boys’ club culture, crunch, and HR protection of abusers” at the studio. Bungie CEO Pete Parson later apologised and the studio’s head of HR stepped down just a few weeks later.
