Riot Games will support its employees’ participation in the company-wide walkout today, but it will maintain its policies regarding active lawsuits despite the protests, according to a report published by Upcomer.
According to Upcomer, the League of Legends developer urged upper management to clear meeting schedules so its employees could partake in the walkout. Riot will not take any action against those who chose to participate in the walkout but will maintain its current policies regarding active litigation.
The walkout follows a report from Kotaku published in August of 2018, which alleged Riot’s company culture allowed sexism and “fraternity” mindset to become acceptable. Five current and former employees then filed lawsuits against the company with claims of gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
Riot has since taken steps to change its culture, including the hiring of several people to help diversify the representation within the company. Despite these attempts at mending its broken culture, Riot has forced at least one of the ongoing lawsuits into neutral arbitration.
The walkout was scheduled today from 4 pm CT to 6 pm CT to protest the forced arbitration, with employees from numerous sectors of the company partaking in and showing their support for the movement.
Riot gave an update last week on its diversity and inclusion efforts that began after the original Kotaku report, laying out 30, 60, and 90-day goals. The League of Legends developer will allow Rioters the chance to opt-out of mandatory arbitration for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims moving forward.
