So IANAL but "an emergent pattern" (which doesn't sound as bad as, e.g., internal memos to the effect of "let's pay the gurls less hahaha") may be more than eno

So IANAL but "an emergent pattern" (which doesn't sound as bad as, e.g., internal memos to the effect of "let's pay the gurls less hahaha") may be more than enough for the government to categorize Google's behavior as gender-based wage discrimination. If/when the government does that, I think 2 things happen: 1. the government announces some punitive action against Google; things they must do, things they must pay, etc; 2. the probability of every Jane, Jill, and Hillary who worked for Google winning a wage discrimination case skyrockets, at least some workers file such cases or enter negotiations to settle such discrimination. The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 means (pardon my rough summarization) that a worker can sue over discriminatory pay even if the discrimination / 'lost' wages occurred a while ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_of_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_o...