LONDON: A US appeals court on Thursday revived a software engineer’s proposed class action claiming Meta Platforms refused to hire him because it preferred to give jobs to foreign workers who are paid lower wages.
The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling said that a Civil War-era law barring discrimination in contracts based on “alienage” extends to bias against US citizens.
The decision reverses a California federal judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit by Purushothaman Rajaram, a naturalized US citizen who says Meta passes over American workers for jobs in favor of cheaper visa recipients. Rajaram is seeking to represent a class that includes thousands of workers.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company in court filings has denied wrongdoing and said Rajaram failed to show that Meta intended to discriminate against US workers.
Daniel Low, a lawyer for Rajaram, said that bias against US citizens is a significant problem in the tech industry.
“We expect that this ruling will lead to more lawsuits seeking to end such discrimination,” Low said in an email.
The 9th Circuit had never before addressed whether the federal law, Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, provides protections from hiring discrimination for US citizens.
The only other appeals court that has considered the issue, the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, said the law does not prohibit bias against US citizens in a 1986 decision. The split created by the 9th Circuit on Thursday raises the chances that the US Supreme Court could take the case if Meta appeals.
Conservative groups have increasingly cited Section 1981, which also bars race discrimination in contracts, in challenging companies’ diversity initiatives and the hiring of foreign visa workers.
Thursday’s decision could be a major boon to plaintiffs in a growing number of cases alleging bias against US workers, at least in California and the eight other states covered by the 9th Circuit. Unlike Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law banning workplace discrimination, Section 1981 does not cap the damages that plaintiffs can receive if they win lawsuits, and it does not require them to file complaints with government agencies before suing.
Apple last year agreed to pay $25 million to settle a US government lawsuit accusing the tech giant of illegally favoring immigrant workers over US citizens and green card holders for certain jobs. The company denied wrongdoing.
And last month, a conservative legal group founded by former Trump administration officials called for a federal investigation into Tyson Foods’ alleged practice of disproportionately hiring foreign workers, including minors and people in the US illegally. Tyson called the claims “completely false.”
Meta must face lawsuit claiming it prefers foreign workers over US citizens
https://arab.news/4cqd4
Meta must face lawsuit claiming it prefers foreign workers over US citizens
- Class action accuses Meta of favoring foreign workers for lower wages
Study finds nearly half of UK news stories on Muslims show signs of bias
- Centre for Media Monitoring finds 20,000 out of 40,913 articles from 30 major news outlets contain bias and 70% link Muslims to negative behaviors or themes
- Findings reveal ‘deeply concerning evidence of structural bias’ in portrayal of Muslims by UK press and point to ‘systemic problem’ within the media, says center’s director
LONDON: Nearly half of news articles published in the UK in 2025 that referenced Muslims or Islam contained some degree of bias, according to a report issued on Monday by the Centre for Media Monitoring. It also found that about 70 percent of stories linked Muslims to negative behaviors or themes.
The nonprofit organization, which tracks the ways in which Muslims and Islam are portrayed in the media, examined 40,913 articles from 30 major news outlets and found that about 20,000 showed some form of bias.
The study looked at “structural patterns” in coverage that “shape public narratives” about Muslims amid rising hostility toward the community.
“As the largest study of its kind ever conducted in the UK, this report presents deeply concerning evidence of structural bias in how Muslims are portrayed in the UK press,” said Rizwana Hamid, the director of the organization.
It found that 70 percent of the articles it reviewed highlighted negative aspects related to Muslims, though not all of the stories were biased in themselves. The wider patterns were also troubling: 44 percent of the coverage omitted key context, 17 percent relied on generalizations, and 13 percent included outright misrepresentation.
Taken together, the monitoring center said, the findings amounted to evidence of an “information integrity crisis” that distorts public understanding, and “a deeply concerning trend” in reporting on Muslims.
The research points to a “systemic problem within our media ecosystem,” Hamid said.
“When entire communities are repeatedly framed through lenses of suspicion or threat, it inevitably shapes public attitudes, political debate and the everyday lives of British Muslims,” she added.
News brands targeting right-wing audiences were more likely to produce biased coverage, the report found.
The Spectator magazine and GB News were identified as having the highest proportion of “very biased” articles, and as the “worst across all five bias categories”: negative framing, generalizations, misrepresentation, lack of context, and problematic headlines.
Other outlets highlighted for displaying high levels of biased content about Muslims included The Telegraph, The Jewish Chronicle, Daily Express, The Sun, Daily Mail and The Times.
In contrast, the BBC, other broadcasters and left-leaning outlets recorded the lowest rates of bias in the study.
The research comes as British Muslims report rising levels of discrimination. Official figures published in October revealed that religious hate crimes against Muslims rose by 19 percent in the year to March 2025 compared with the previous 12 months.
