Charlotte Newman knew her qualifications warranted a job that was at a level higher than the one she was offered by Amazon in 2016. She had even interviewed for a higher position, but ultimately accepted when the tech giant gave her the lower role. Still, within months, Newman claims she was expected to complete work at a higher level than what she was hired for—and she’s not the only one.
Down-leveling, as it has come to be dubbed by Amazon employees, is a practice in which workers are hired at a level lower than what they applied or are qualified for, and is reportedly common for women (and, more frequently, Black women) who are employed by Amazon.
For Newman, a Black senior manager who previously worked as a top adviser to Senator Cory Booker, it was the first domino to fall in a chain of events that would eventually lead to a maelstrom of racial discrimination, sexual harassment and assault allegations, and, ultimately, a lawsuit.
Last March, Vox’s Recode reported that she sued the company for alleged down-leveling, which the court has since dismissed as untimely, though the case is still moving forward on her claims of racial and gender discrimination, and sexual harassment and assault. In the suit, she accused a former Amazon senior colleague, Andres Maz, of sexually harassing and assaulting her (both Amazon and Maz have denied her allegations). After filing internal complaints, Amazon conducted an investigation and terminated Maz, according to Newman’s suit, but not before she was expected to still attend virtual meetings in which he was also present. The lack of transparency in the investigation, she says, complicated an already traumatic experience.
Now, a year later and with her case still ongoing, Newman—who currently serves as the head of Underrepresented Founder Startup Business Development at Amazon Web Services—is still speaking out.
“I have lost friends and a relationship, sacrificed my health, and set aside certain career goals all in the pursuit of accountability and change from Amazon,” she tells BAZAAR.com. “Though deciding to file suit has come at an incredible cost, I know without question that I am doing the right thing.”
Ahead, Newman reflects on what’s happened in the year since she filed her lawsuit, explains why Amazon’s recent decision to undergo a racial equity audit isn’t enough, and shares her hopes for survivors everywhere.
It’s been a year since you first made headlines for filing a federal lawsuit against Amazon Web Services. Where do you stand with that?
After I filed my lawsuit, there were motions filed by Amazon and one of the defendants, Andres Maz, to dismiss portions of my case. For months, I wondered if those motions would be successful—not because I don’t have a 100 percent faith in what I’m bringing forward, because I know what I’ve experienced, but because I was nervous about the legal resources that Amazon has. But at the end of March, a judge ruled that all of my racial and gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual assault claims could move forward.
There was one portion of it that the judge decided wasn’t timely. I’ve learned throughout this process just how much time really does matter. I experienced both sexual harassment and sexual assault, as well as racial discrimination and being down-leveled, and I didn’t realize in all cases the timing required for each piece of that. I also thought that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed into law under President Obama would protect my ability to bring forward any issues around down-leveling at a later date. But it did not, because down-leveling is—while it has a huge impact on wage outcomes—is not in fact a wage decision, was a part of the judge’s decision.
Essentially, the very positive news that I received at the end of March was that my case is moving forward, which is a relief and very validating.
Are you still working at Amazon?
I am still working at Amazon, but I’m on a medical leave. Last year after I filed my case, I worked until the end of December under a great deal of stress, having to deal with the anxiety of the case but also dealing with the issues in the past—the sexual harassment and assault that I experienced—and then layering on the responsibilities of work day to day. That really came to a head. All of those factors led to both physical and mental health concerns that I had to step back and really take better care of myself.
That must have been incredibly stressful to not only have to go through that, but to also have the case be prolonged with all the motions Amazon had been putting forth to try to get the case thrown out.
Absolutely. Before coming forward and filing the lawsuit, I certainly had the counsel of my attorneys, but I don’t think that there’s any way for you to really anticipate the amount of stress and pressure that filing a public lawsuit means—especially one that deals with matters like sexual harassment and assault. It’s like living out some of the most private, complicated, difficult parts of your life in public.
In the early days right after filing the lawsuit, I felt like I cried almost every day because it was just so overwhelming to try to communicate in real time about the things that I had experienced. I had tried to really compartmentalize and push forward past my feelings at the time.
The sexual harassment began in 2017 and continued over a few years. There was a part of me that thought if I just put my head down and work that I’ll somehow be able to excel enough that the things that I’m experiencing will stop, or that I’ll be able to move to a different part of the company and it’ll be okay. Since those years of suffering in silence, I realized that there isn’t really a way to lock away part of yourself. That ultimately those experiences and emotions and feelings that you tried to push down, they’re going to come to the forefront.
In this case, I made the decision to step forward, not only because I wanted to seek some accountability for what had happened to me, but also because I had come across a number of employees—women, people of color, and a number of Black employees in particular—who had experienced very similar things. I felt like I wanted to also use my voice in support of others. But that doesn’t mean that it has been an easy journey to embark on. It’s been a very difficult year-plus.
That part about suffering in silence reminds me of an excerpt from an essay that you wrote for Fast Company last year, where you said that Amazon should “demystify the investigation process around sexual harassment and racial discrimination claims,” and that the confusion around this process can discourage survivors from speaking out. What are the kind of structures or policies that you think would prioritize the safety of survivors?
Thank you so much for that question. This is something that I feel very passionate about. Since coming forward, I have received questions from other women at Amazon asking me what happens when you file a complaint, because there is, as far as I’m aware to date, still no public way for you to understand what the investigation process might be should you file a complaint around sexual harassment or sexual assault.
One of the things that I think would be tremendous—not only on Amazon, but I think is the best practice across other organizations as well—is just transparency. What survivors of these incidents want in many cases is a very clear and transparent understanding of what a process will be. It is incredibly traumatizing to experience the incidents in the first place and then re-triggering to go through retelling what happened. In my case, I endured hours of questioning and needed to recall minutia, like whether I had ate or drank, or what I had to eat. And I think that those types of questions and that kind of process, at least if you understand what might happen ahead of time, it allows you to prepare for it emotionally and mentally.
In a more formal way, in terms of what sort of processes make sense at a tech company like Amazon, this could look like integration. There’s something called Amazon A to Z that allows employees to do things like access their W-2. I’ve raised the question of why can’t Amazon A to Z, for example, be used for employees to file complaints when they experience sexual harassment or racial discrimination? When you’re using technology in that way, it could be used for good because it allows the individual who’s filing the complaint to see what the steps are in the process, to understand where their complaint is, to understand who’s handling it. That was clarity that I did not have both at the front end of the process or throughout, and it just increased the anxiety around coming forward.
What I’m hoping for, where I work at Amazon and at other organizations, is that after you go through something like this at work, you don’t have to worry about things like process and logistics. Instead you can focus on, “How do I shore myself up mentally and emotionally so I can share my story and hopefully seek some justice and accountability?” That’s really where the focus for survivors should be.
Speaking of transparency, Amazon agreed to a racial equity audit last week for its hourly workers. You tweeted your discontent about this step, saying that it “carves out” Black corporate workers from the review. Can you elaborate on why you think this doesn’t go far enough for all Amazon workers?
Racial equity audits, as I understand it, came out of 2020. They’ve been a response to the murder of George Floyd and a mechanism for companies to really assess the status of civil rights at their company—and to assess that status as it relates to all of their employees and employment practices, as well as the community impact of the products or services that they offer. What I noticed in the update that Amazon provided is that it was a racial equity audit, but there’s no mention of the products that Amazon deploys, and it’s very clear that corporate employees aren’t included.
When I saw the headlines, it sounded like this was going to be the comprehensive, independent audit that many stakeholders have asked for. Then, when I double-clicked on the headlines and began to read about what the substance of the audit would be, I realized that there was a huge carve out and that employees like myself aren’t covered, as well as products. And if you’re looking at Amazon and the many business lines that it operates, there are a number of different products that have an impact on the Black community and other communities of color. How are products that integrate advanced technologies like artificial intelligence used in a socially responsible way or not? That’s being left out of the assessment.
What I see is often a pattern of Amazon not being forward-leaning when it comes to its people and culture practices as it is when it looks at new businesses to invest in. That, in the long term, raises a number of challenges. For employees like myself, it means that day to day, you’re working in an environment that often isn’t as inclusive, as diverse, and— frankly—toxic. For those of us who understand that diversity, equity, and inclusion isn’t just a nice thing to do, but also good business practice, it means that the outcome of tech development or new business investments are worse off and perhaps may not show the same returns as they would if you actually took a more diverse and equitable lens.
It’s absolutely the case that there needs to be a real assessment of employment practices that impact hourly workers. I have followed very closely the unionization votes. I have followed incidents like the very tragic loss of life at an Amazon fulfillment center during a tornado. I have followed and have spoken directly with individuals who work in fulfillment centers and know that there are really egregious concerns around the employment practices there. There should be a very key focus on that, but I don’t think that it has to come at the expense of a comprehensive exhaustive assessment of Amazon’s practices writ large, nor do I think that there aren’t similar concerns that should be investigated at the corporate level as well.
Other than the audit, what are some other steps you would like to see be made?
I have long called on Amazon to actually address the issue of down-leveling. For those who may not know what that term means—I certainly didn’t before joining Amazon—down-leveling is a practice where you interview for one position and you’re offered an entirely different role and often at a more junior level. In some cases, you might be doing the same work [as the senior level], as it was in my case. Amazon needs to take a real look at down-leveling, because it has a disparate impact on employees of color and women in particular.
I also think that there has to be a real reassessment of the processes and procedures that happen once someone comes forward about sexual harassment and racial discrimination. That’s a really important step the company needs to take in order to ensure that employees at every level of the company feel that they can speak up when they encounter a situation like what I experienced.
I really believe that to shift the culture at the company, managers and business leaders have to be held accountable for their outcomes on diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the same way that they’re held accountable for other business outcomes. When you treat D&I as though it’s something that is nice to have, or kind of an ancillary issue that isn’t the core work of the business, it leads to far worse outcomes. I think it leads to the kind of toxic culture that I’ve experienced. But it also undermines the real business principle that I certainly not only personally believe in, but I know is seen as the best practice: that D&I is a part of how businesses perform well.
While it’s significant to see strides being made at Amazon in regard to the union election, in regard to yours and other employees’ lawsuits shedding a light on the culture of the company, so much of this conversation has also focused on how deeply ingrained these issues can be. Do you believe that true equity is possible for a company like Amazon? Can it be changed from the inside, or does it take external forces to truly transform it?
I thought so much about this question. When I first joined, I experienced an environment that was sexist, that was racist. There was a part of me that thought, Perhaps I should just leave. I really wrestled with this question, and I think where I’ve landed is that the answer is both.
I absolutely think that employees internally are pushing and nudging the company in a direction that I ultimately hope is a more equitable one. The limitation of that, though, is often that work of nudging and pushing the company in a more equitable direction becomes an additional tax that’s placed on the shoulders of employees of color and women.
So I think that there are some things that are possible from working within, but I also think it does require external pressure. As someone who previously worked for four members of Congress, I very much think there’s a role for policy, legislation, and congressional scrutiny. The pressure required to ensure that companies do the right thing—companies like Amazon and other tech companies—should come in the form of congressional oversight, of journalists really doing the digging to understand what’s going on. But consumers and citizens also play a role. I think that people are becoming more interested in what’s happening at Amazon.
Do you have any advice for other women experiencing similar cases of abuse or discrimination in positions like you?
Since coming forward, a number of women have privately told me that they felt like I was very courageous and they did not believe they were as brave and thus could not speak up. And what I have said to many women in private is that, should you decide that your journey includes coming forward about abuse or harassment or assault, you already have what’s required within yourself to do so. I believe strongly that bravery and courage don’t look like what we think they are, or at least they don’t feel that way. There are a lot of days when I do feel fear, when I feel anxiety, but I now understand that courage is more about a daily decision of deciding to move forward.
The more that we all understand how much power we hold within ourselves, and that we already have the tools to speak up and to be brave, collectively there’s a lot of power in small acts of bravery. I don’t expect that everyone will decide to file a lawsuit or speak up publicly in the same way, but there are small steps that you can take to feel more empowered wherever you sit and to take power back if you’ve experienced abuse of any kind.
I have lost friends and a relationship, sacrificed my health, and set aside certain career goals all in the pursuit of accountability and change from Amazon. Though deciding to file suit has come at an incredible cost, I know without question that I am doing the right thing. When it’s all said and done, I hope I am remembered for speaking up for others, even when it was inconvenient.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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