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Megan Geuss - Mar 18, 2015 8:57 pm UTC

A former Facebook technology partner, Chia Hong, is suing Facebook and a number of unnamed employees for gender and race discrimination. The case was filed this week in San Mateo County Superior Court (PDF), and it echoes a high-profile gender discrimination case currently underway in San Francisco. In that case, former Kleiner Perkins employee Ellen Pao is suing the venture capital firm for gender discrimination and retaliation.

Therese Lawless, who has led much of the examination of witnesses during Pao’s case over the last few weeks, is an employment lawyer who has been practicing since the '80s. Her sister and firm partner, Barbara, is also listed as representing Hong.

Hong’s complaint calls out Facebook as well as an employee named Anil Wilson and 30 other unnamed employees. Hong was hired to Facebook as a program manager and was then promoted to be a technology partner, a position that Facebook says involves supporting the IT team in "growing and evolving the relationship with internal business functions and leaders in the region.” Hong’s complaint says that she received raises throughout her employment, but when she began complaining about harassment, she was fired in October 2013.

Specifically, Hong says she was "belittled at work and asked why she did not just stay home and take care of her children” and she was “admonished” when she requested time off to visit her child at school. She also says she was "ordered to organize parties and serve drinks to male colleagues, which was not a part of her job description and not something that was requested of males with whom she worked.” When Hong was fired, she says she was replaced by a less qualified male.

Hong also says that Facebook employee Anil Wilson ignored and belittled Hong’s opinions, took part in giving her grief about her child, and ordered her to mix drinks. He also told Hong he had heard she was "an 'order taker,' by which he meant that she did not exercise independent discretion in the execution of her job duties,” the complaint states.

Many of these claims have echoes in Ellen Pao’s case, in which Pao claims she experienced retaliation after a male colleague harassed her and was not promoted while less-qualified men were. Pao, who is now the interim CEO of reddit, has a higher profile than Hong, but Hong’s case suggests that women in Silicon Valley may be following suit.

Hong’s case is different from Pao’s however, in that she’s including a race discrimination claim in her lawsuit. She says that she had her "professional opinions belittled or ignored at group meetings in which she was one of the only employees of Chinese descent” and claims that she was "not integrated into the team because she looks different and talks differently than other team members.”

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