On February 3, 2025, Kelly Stonelake, a former senior leader at Meta with a 15-year tenure at the company, sued Meta in King County Superior Court.

Ms. Stonelake’s case, led by BJT partner Cindy Heidelberg, highlights systemic patterns of sex discrimination and retaliation against women at Meta who raise concerns about safety, bias, and regulatory compliance. It outlines the repeated harassment and sex discrimination she faced during her years at Meta, and how Meta retaliated against her for exposing regulatory and safety risks that harmed children.

“For 15 years, I was trusted to lead Meta’s most strategic and exciting work,” said Ms. Stonelake. “Two years ago, when I was asked to lead the launch of Horizon, Meta’s ambitious virtual reality platform – I was thrilled. What I soon discovered was horrifying: a product where users with Black avatars faced racial slurs within seconds, and children exposed to sexual harassment and bullying were inadequately protected. When I escalated these problems, I became the problem – a pattern that widens the wealth gap and silences women everywhere. The truth doesn’t matter to Mark Zuckerberg, but it matters to me.”

Ms. Stonelake’s story is not an isolated incident—it is part of a broader pattern of Meta silencing women who speak up to protect users and ensure ethical decision-making.  The lawsuit aims to bring accountability and systemic change to prevent other women from facing the same impossible choice: stay silent and compromise integrity or speak up and sacrifice their career. Ms. Stonelake recognizes that “my position of privilege means I have both the resources and responsibility to speak up.” And she recognizes that systemic discrimination and retaliation against women in tech has particularly profound implications: “Discrimination in tech isn’t just an ethical issue — it’s anti-innovation, it’s irresponsible, and it causes harm on a scale that only technology companies can achieve.” Stonelake told Business Insider in an interview (full story here and a profile in Law 360 here).

Read the full Complaint here.