OREGON HOUSE, Calif. — In a tiny city in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, a non secular group referred to as the Fellowship of Friends has established an elaborate, 1,200-acre compound filled with artwork and ornate structure.
More than 200 miles away from the Fellowship’s base in Oregon House, Calif., the non secular sect, which believes a greater consciousness might be achieved by embracing positive arts and tradition, has additionally gained a foothold inside a enterprise unit at Google.
Even in Google’s freewheeling workplace tradition, which inspires staff to talk their very own minds and pursue their very own tasks, the Fellowship’s presence in the enterprise unit was uncommon. As many as 12 Fellowship members and shut kinfolk labored for the Google Developer Studio, or GDS, which produces movies showcasing the corporate’s applied sciences, based on a lawsuit filed by Kevin Lloyd, a 34-year-old former Google video producer.
Many others staffed firm occasions, working registration desks, taking pictures, taking part in music, offering massages and serving wine. For these occasions, Google frequently purchased wine from an Oregon House vineyard owned by a member of the Fellowship, based on the lawsuit.
Mr. Lloyd claimed he was fired final 12 months as a result of he complained concerning the affect of the non secular sect. His swimsuit additionally names Advanced Systems Group, or ASG, the corporate that despatched Mr. Lloyd to Google as a contractor. Most of the Google Developer Studio joined the group via ASG as contractors, together with many members of the Fellowship.
The swimsuit, which Mr. Lloyd filed in August in California Superior Court, accuses Google and ASG of violating a California employment regulation that protects staff in opposition to discrimination. It is in the invention stage.
The New York Times corroborated lots of the lawsuit’s claims via interviews with eight present and former staff of the Google enterprise unit and examinations of publicly accessible info and different paperwork. These included a membership roster for the Fellowship of Friends, Google spreadsheets detailing occasion budgets and photographs taken at these occasions.
“We have longstanding employee and supplier policies in place to prevent discrimination and conflicts of interest, and we take those seriously,” a Google spokeswoman, Courtenay Mencini, stated in a assertion. “It’s against the law to ask for the religious affiliations of those who work for us or for our suppliers, but we’ll of course thoroughly look into these allegations for any irregularities or improper contracting practices. If we find evidence of policy violations, we will take action.”
Dave Van Hoy, ASG’s president, stated in a assertion that his firm believed in “the principles of openness, inclusivity and equality for people of all races, religions, gender identification and above all nondiscrimination.”
“We continue to deny the plaintiff’s baseless allegations and expect to vindicate ourselves in court soon,” he added.
Founded in 1970 by Robert Earl Burton, a former San Francisco Bay Area schoolteacher, the Fellowship of Friends describes itself as a company “available to anyone interested in pursuing the spiritual work of awakening.” It claims 1,500 members throughout the globe, with about 500 to 600 in and round its compound in Oregon House. Members are usually required to present 10 p.c of their month-to-month earnings to the group.
Mr. Burton based mostly his teachings on the Fourth Way, a philosophy developed in the early twentieth century by a Greek Armenian thinker and one in every of his college students. They believed that whereas most individuals moved via life in a state of “waking sleep,” a greater consciousness was doable. Drawing on what he described as visits from angelic incarnations of historic figures like Leonardo da Vinci, Johann Sebastian Bach and Walt Whitman, Mr. Burton taught that true consciousness could possibly be achieved by embracing the positive arts.
Inside the group’s Northern California compound, referred to as Apollo, the Fellowship staged operas, performs and ballets; ran a critically acclaimed vineyard; and picked up artwork from internationally, together with greater than $11 million in Chinese antiques.
“They believe that to achieve enlightenment you should surround yourself with so-called higher impressions — what Robert Burton believed to be the finest things in life,” stated Jennings Brown, a journalist who lately produced a podcast concerning the Fellowship referred to as “Revelations.” Mr. Burton described Apollo because the seed of a new civilization that will emerge after a international apocalypse.
The Fellowship got here underneath hearth in 1984 when a former member filed a $2.75 million lawsuit claiming that younger males who joined the group “had been forcefully and unlawfully sexually seduced by Burton.” In 1996, one other former member filed a swimsuit that accused Mr. Burton of sexual misconduct with him whereas he was minor. Both fits have been settled out of court docket.
The similar 12 months, the Fellowship bought its assortment of Chinese antiques at public sale. In 2015, after its chief winemaker left the group, its vineyard ceased production. The Fellowship’s president, Greg Holman, declined to remark for this text.
The Google Developer Studio is run by Peter Lubbers, a longtime member of the Fellowship of Friends. A July 2019 Fellowship listing, obtained by The Times, lists him as a member. Former members verify that he joined the Fellowship after shifting to the United States from the Netherlands.
At Google, he’s a director, a position that’s normally a rung beneath vice chairman in Google administration and normally receives annual compensation in the excessive six figures or low seven figures.
Previously, Mr. Lubbers labored for the staffing firm Kelly Services. M. Catherine Jones, Mr. Lloyd’s lawyer, gained a related swimsuit in opposition to Kelly Services in 2008 on behalf of Lynn Noyes, who claimed that the corporate had failed to advertise her as a result of she was not a member of the Fellowship. A California court docket awarded Ms. Noyes $6.5 million in damages.
Ms. Noyes stated in an interview that Mr. Lubbers was amongst a massive contingent of Fellowship members from the Netherlands who labored for the corporate in the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.
At Kelly Services, Mr. Lubbers labored as a software program developer earlier than a stint at Oracle, the Silicon Valley software program large, based on his LinkedIn profile, which was lately deleted. He joined Google in 2012, initially engaged on a group that promoted Google know-how to exterior software program builders. In 2014, he helped create G.D.S., which produced movies selling Google developer instruments.
Kelly Services declined to touch upon the lawsuit.
Under Mr. Lubbers, the group introduced in a number of different members of the Fellowship, together with a video producer named Gabe Pannell. A 2015 picture posted to the web by Mr. Pannell’s father reveals Mr. Lubbers and Mr. Pannell with Mr. Burton, who is called “The Teacher” or “Our Beloved Teacher” inside the Fellowship. A caption on the picture, which was additionally lately deleted, calls Mr. Pannell a “new student.”
Echoing claims made in the lawsuit, Erik Johanson, a senior video producer who has labored for the Google Developer Studio since 2015 via ASG, stated the group’s management abused the hiring system that introduced staff in as contractors.
“They were able to further their own aims very rapidly because they could hire people with far less scrutiny and a far less rigorous on-boarding process than if these people were brought on as full-time employees,” he stated. “It meant that no one was looking very closely when all these people were brought on from the foothills of the Sierras.”
Mr. Lloyd stated that after making use of for his job he had interviewed with Mr. Pannell twice, and that he had reported on to Mr. Pannell when he joined a 25-person Bay Area video manufacturing group inside GDS in 2017. He quickly seen that just about half this group, together with Mr. Lubbers and Mr. Pannell, got here from Oregon House.
Google paid to have a state-of-the-art sound system put in in the Oregon House dwelling of 1 Fellowship member who labored for the group as a sound designer, based on the swimsuit. Mr. Lubbers disputed this declare in a cellphone interview, saying the tools was outdated and would have been thrown out if the group had not despatched it to the house.
The sound designer’s daughter additionally labored for the group as a set designer. Additional Fellowship members and their kinfolk have been employed to workers Google occasions, together with a photographer, a masseuse, Mr. Lubbers’s spouse and his son, who labored as a DJ at firm events.
The firm steadily served wine from Grant Marie, a vineyard in Oregon House run by a Fellowship member who beforehand managed the Fellowship’s vineyard, based on the swimsuit and a individual acquainted with the matter, who declined to be recognized for concern of reprisal.
“My personal religious beliefs are a deeply held private matter,” Mr. Lubbers stated. “In all my years in tech, they have never played a role in hiring. I have always performed my role by bringing in the right talent for the situation — bringing in the right vendors for the jobs.”
He stated ASG, not Google, employed contractors for the GDS group, including that it was positive for him to “encourage people to apply for those roles.” And he stated that in latest years, the group has grown to greater than 250 folks, together with part-time staff.
Mr. Pannell stated in a cellphone interview that the group introduced in staff from “a circle of trusted friends and families with extremely qualified backgrounds,” together with graduates of the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2017 and 2018, based on the swimsuit, Mr. Pannell attended video shoots intoxicated and sometimes threw issues on the presenter when he was sad with a efficiency. Mr. Pannell stated that he didn’t bear in mind the incidents and that they didn’t sound like one thing he would do. He additionally acknowledged that he’d had issues with alcohol and had sought assist.
After seven months at Google, Mr. Pannell was made a full-time worker, based on the swimsuit. He was later promoted to senior producer after which govt producer, based on his LinkedIn profile, which has additionally been deleted.
Mr. Lloyd introduced a lot of this to the eye of a supervisor contained in the group, he stated. But he was repeatedly advised to not pursue the matter as a result of Mr. Lubbers was a highly effective determine at Google and since Mr. Lloyd might lose his job, based on his lawsuit. He stated he was fired in February 2021 and was not given a cause. Google, Mr. Lubbers and Mr. Pannell stated he had been fired for efficiency points.
Ms. Jones, Mr. Lloyd’s lawyer, argued that Google’s relationship with ASG allowed members of the Fellowship to hitch the corporate with out being correctly vetted. “This is one of the methods the Fellowship used in the Kelly case,” she stated. “They can get through the door without the normal scrutiny.”
Mr. Lloyd is looking for damages for wrongful termination, retaliation, failure to forestall discrimination and the intentional infliction of emotion misery. But he stated he worries that, by doing a lot enterprise with its members, Google fed cash into the Fellowship of Friends.
“Once you become aware of this, you become responsible,” Mr. Lloyd stated. “You can’t look away.”
