61 Facts About Chelsey Glasson

Chelsey Glasson was born on 1982 or 1983 and is an American user researcher, author, and workers' rights advocate.

Chelsey Glasson sued Google, her former employer, for pregnancy discrimination, which ended in an undisclosed settlement after two years of litigation.

Chelsey Glasson has successfully lobbied for pregnancy anti-discrimination and labor rights laws in Washington State.

Chelsey Glasson comes from a large Family farm on father's side.

Chelsey Glasson's family moved to Everett, Washington when she was young near her mother's family and her father's job at Boeing.

Chelsey Glasson's mother spent part of her childhood in foster care and attempted to overdose on anxiety medication when Glasson was in the third grade.

Chelsey Glasson's mother remarried when she was in the 4th grade, and she moved with her mother and step-father to Snohomish, Washington.

Chelsey Glasson took piano lessons, played in the school's jazz band, and says she was academically high-achieving.

Chelsey Glasson won the title of Miss Snohomish County in 2003, qualifying her as a Miss Washington contestant.

Chelsey Glasson made her platform about eating disorder awareness advocacy.

Chelsey Glasson met her husband, Maxwell, while they were both taking summer courses at the University of Washington.

Chelsey Glasson later moved with him to Zephyr Cove, Nevada, where he was from near South Lake Tahoe, California.

Chelsey Glasson said her husband's family accused her of marrying for money.

Chelsey Glasson holds a Bachelor of Arts from UW in Communications.

Chelsey Glasson earned a Master of Science in Human Centered Design and Engineering from UW in 2011.

Chelsey Glasson holds certificates from Cornell University and University of Denver.

Chelsey Glasson was an intern for Maria Cantwell, a United States Senator, and worked as a public policy analyst for the Nevada Legislature.

Chelsey Glasson said she realized she was enrolled in the wrong program halfway through earning a Master of Arts in Communication when she took a user experience design course, which led her to enroll in the HCDE graduate program at UW and transition into the field of UX.

Chelsey Glasson said that she was inspired by a woman in executive leadership at Microsoft to find a tech career.

In 2010, while in graduate school, Chelsey Glasson worked as an intern at T-Mobile, where she was later promoted to a full-time employee and laid off a few months later.

Chelsey Glasson later joined Udacity as their lead user experience researcher, where she said she hoped to help democratize education.

Chelsey Glasson became a guest editor for UX Magazine in 2013.

Chelsey Glasson joined Google in Mountain View, California in 2014 as a user researcher, and was promoted several times into management.

Chelsey Glasson said she was a strong performer, twice receiving a "superb" rating through the company's performance cycles.

In July 2016, while Chelsey Glasson was on her first of two maternity leaves, she relocated to Seattle, Washington, to work out of Google's Kirkland and Seattle offices.

Chelsey Glasson said her manager, who was influential in the company's research department, allowed her to work remotely for the first few weeks after her leave ended.

Chelsey Glasson said that this was due to her being a top performer.

Chelsey Glasson was eventually promoted to managing a team of six, with another promotion planned prior to her second pregnancy.

Chelsey Glasson left the company in August 2019 following what she alleged to be retaliation for reporting and experiencing pregnancy discrimination.

In early August 2019, Chelsey Glasson posted a 2,300-word memo about her departure from Google on an internal message board, which went viral within the company and was reported upon outside of the company, gaining media attention.

Chelsey Glasson alleged that her manager tried to get Glasson to encourage the woman to leave her team, or the company altogether, and that after she reported the misconduct, instead of an investigation into the accused manager, her complaint was reported to the manager.

Chelsey Glasson said she hired an attorney who sent Google a demand letter which requested a lateral internal transfer, an investigation into retaliation, and prevention of further retaliation.

Chelsey Glasson refused to sign it, and stayed at the company until she voluntarily left in August 2019, after she says she was given a poor performance review during her second maternity leave.

Chelsey Glasson said the performance review came after a "shallow" investigation into some of her discrimination claims, which ultimately resulted in Google finding no policy violations.

Chelsey Glasson said that as a manager at Google, she was instructed to encourage the use of EAP counseling to distressed employees.

Chelsey Glasson said that, after her own experiences, she believes that human resources teams directing employees to mental health counselors is "meant to stop you in your tracks and silence you", and to communicate that "you're the problem".

Chelsey Glasson has criticized Google for attempting to "tarnish the reputation" of people who speak out, instead of offering real support and fixing problems.

Chelsey Glasson has since spoken to the Alphabet Workers Union about her experiences.

Chelsey Glasson warned her former colleagues, "Being a whistleblower so often wreaks havoc on your mental and physical health," and discussed the need for affordable legal and mental health services.

Chelsey Glasson said that implying that parental leave is some sort of vacation or unfair advantage "subjects parents to unconscious bias in performance reviews and downplays the type of support and benefits parents so desperately need".

In 2021, Chelsey Glasson contributed to The Tech Worker Handbook, a website of free resources for employees who may be interested in speaking out on issues at their employers.

In 2022, Chelsey Glasson's story was the subject of the documentary Spread Thin directed by Bashirah Mack.

Chelsey Glasson said she planned to work in employment law to fill what she believed to be a gender-based gap in the field.

Chelsey Glasson filed a complaint against Google with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for pregnancy discrimination on September 3,2019.

Chelsey Glasson alleged that when she reported she was pregnant with her second child that her work environment worsened.

Chelsey Glasson said she tried to move internally, but was convinced to stay on her team after she was misled into believing her manager was leaving.

Chelsey Glasson further alleged that after she was diagnosed with placenta praevia, her new manager was dismissive, citing an NPR segment she had heard "debunk[ing] the benefits of bed rest", and her own experience ignoring medically-advised bed rest and delivering "the biggest presentations of [her] career" the day before her own child was born.

Chelsey Glasson further alleged that her manager informed her that she should not expect to be a manager when she returned from her leave.

Chelsey Glasson's pregnancy-related requests", and that there was "no support for Ms.

Chelsey Glasson sent another demand letter to Google requesting the company work with the Center for Parental Leave Leadership to train managers at the company on supporting new and expecting parents to prevent others from facing the same types of discrimination and retaliation that she alleges she faced, and asking for payment for emotional damages and reimbursement for her legal expenses.

Chelsey Glasson referred to the process as "intrusive", and said there were "very few limits to what a corporation like Google can ask in discovery".

Chelsey Glasson later reported that more than a year later, the therapist suggested they stop their sessions and she find another provider as soon as she filed the lawsuit.

In October 2021, Chelsey Glasson wrote a Medium article about her experiences as a whistleblower and with the lawsuit against Google, and said that she had already spent $56,000 on the lawsuit.

Chelsey Glasson started a GoFundMe campaign to help with the legal costs.

Chelsey Glasson later wrote a book about her experiences, titled Black Box: A Pregnancy Discrimination Memoir, which was published in September 2023.

In 2020, Chelsey Glasson worked with Senator Karen Keiser in the hopes of extending the statute of limitations for reporting pregnancy discrimination.

Chelsey Glasson testified before the Washington State Senate on January 16,2020, for Senate Bill 6034.

Chelsey Glasson consulted with Senator Keiser on the incident with Lyra Health sharing her therapy information with Google during her lawsuit, and in November 2021, the senator sent a letter to the WSDOH regarding a "potential conflict" between employers and employees who utilize EAPs.

In October 2021, Chelsey Glasson said she was inspired by Ifeoma Ozoma's work on California State Legislature's 2021 Silenced No More Act, which made it illegal for companies to use non-disclosure agreements preventing employees from speaking about unlawful conduct such as discrimination and harassment.

Chelsey Glasson contacted Washington state lawmakers in hopes of having a similar law enacted.

Chelsey Glasson testified that she was "intimidated" by the NDA she had signed when she joined the company, and by the terminology "Google confidential information", leading her to question whether or not she could speak to attorneys and government agencies about her experiences.