A group of 26 Meta employees has filed a federal lawsuit alleging the company used artificial intelligence systems to select workers for layoffs, disproportionately targeting those on medical, parental, or family leave — a case that is drawing attention from tech workers across the country, including in Miami’s growing technology sector.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Oakland, California, claims Meta used internal AI systems, keystroke-monitoring data, AI token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance rankings to determine who would be laid off, according to coverage from Local 10 News. The plaintiffs are among the 8,000 employees — roughly 10% of Meta’s workforce — that the company announced it would lay off in May.
According to the Associated Press report, the lawsuit argues that performance scores “by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability.” Meta reportedly did not account for protected leave when running its algorithmic selection process.
For Miami’s burgeoning tech community, the case resonates deeply. The city has aggressively positioned itself as a technology hub, attracting remote workers, startups, and satellite offices from Silicon Valley giants. As more tech companies adopt AI-driven management tools, local employment attorneys say they are fielding increasing questions about algorithmic fairness in workplace decisions.
About half the plaintiffs in the Meta lawsuit had taken leave for caregiving or pregnancy-related reasons. Eight are women who took maternity or pregnancy-related leave, four are men who took parental leave, and one is a woman who took leave to care for a family member. The lawsuit alleges violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
Meta responded that the claims “lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”
The case also references “disparate impact liability,” a civil rights concept codified in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Trump administration has ordered federal agencies to deprioritize disparate impact enforcement, arguing it undermines “meritocracy.” However, the lawsuit underscores that companies remain vulnerable to such litigation under state laws and private action, regardless of federal enforcement posture.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the company’s “algorithmically assisted selection process, by systematically recording such absences as reduced performance, falls more heavily on women than on men,” because women disproportionately take pregnancy and caregiving leave.
Employee separations are set to begin July 22, and the plaintiffs are seeking to preserve the status quo pending arbitration. The case will be closely watched by Miami’s HR professionals and tech executives alike, as it could set precedents for how AI tools are used in workforce decisions — and who bears responsibility when those tools produce discriminatory outcomes.
As Miami continues to attract tech talent and company expansions, the outcome of this case could shape how local employers design their layoff and performance-review processes in an increasingly AI-driven workplace.
