Area woman accuses Facebook of gender bias

tire salesman, mechanic, roofing worker and security engineer, said Galen Sherwin, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project.

The ACLU says that the women, as well as the union’s other female and other nonmale members, have “routinely been denied the opportunity” to receive job ads and recruitment on Facebook that their male counterparts received. Targeting job ads by gender is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Facebook already tells advertisers that their ads must not discriminate, or encourage discrimination against people based on “personal attributes such as race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability, medical or genetic condition.”

In April, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development filed an administrative complaint saying Facebook’s advertising tools allow landlords and real estate brokers to engage in housing discrimination. Facebook said at the time that it prohibits such discrimination and that it has been working to strengthen its systems.

But Tuesday’s complaint says Facebook has “long known” that employers and employment agencies were using its platform to discriminate on the basis of gender. Instead of eliminating this behavior, the ACLU said Tuesday, Facebook has encouraged it.

“They have been on notice for quite some time,” Sherwin said. “They should have paid closer attention. They had plenty of opportunity to fix this.”