A group of 26 employees at US Meta has sued the company, claiming that internal AI systems were used to identify individuals for layoffs, disproportionately affecting those on protected medical, parental, or family leave. These employees are part of the approximately 8,000 workers—about 10% of Meta's workforce—whom the company announced it would lay off in May 2026.

Filed late on Monday, July 14, 2026, in a federal court in California, the lawsuit alleges Meta employed internal AI tools, including keystroke and activity-monitoring data, AI token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance rankings, to determine layoffs. The complaint states many of these 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."

According to the lawsuit, Meta did not account for protected leave when calculating these scores and "did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires." As a result, employees on protected leave were disproportionately selected for dismissal.

All 26 unnamed plaintiffs took protected leave and requested or received reasonable accommodations for disabilities. Although they have been notified of their layoffs, they remain employed by Meta, with separations scheduled to begin on July 22, 2026.

The lawsuit invokes the concept of disparate impact under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which holds that facially neutral policies can be discriminatory if they disproportionately burden a protected class and are not job-related. The complaint highlights the irreversible harms caused by these layoffs, including loss of employer-subsidized health coverage during pregnancy and medical treatment, extinguished leave rights, forfeited unvested equity, and immigration consequences.

The plaintiffs also note that the algorithmically assisted selection process, which records absences as reduced performance, disproportionately affects women more than men.

Meta has not provided a public response to the lawsuit's allegations as of this report.

Sources

ABC Australia News