The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is being sued for gender discrimination by a director-level staffer at the company, according to a complaint filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court.
Stephanie Siteman, a director of the security management program within CZI’s central technology division, claims that she and other female staffers have been “subjected to ongoing gender-based hostility, differential treatment, and workplace conduct that disproportionately targeted women” since 2021, when she was reassigned to report to Girish Patangay, a male executive in the central technology division.
While working under Patangay — who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit alongside CZI — Siteman alleges female employees were excluded from and undermined during key meetings and tasked with menial administrative tasks, including “ordering food, scheduling meetings, and performing support functions unrelated to their professional roles,” that their male colleagues were not asked to do.
The lawsuit also claims that Patangay repeatedly made “unwelcome, offensive, severe, and pervasive” comments about female employees’ appearances, weight, and social media presence.
Siteman argues multiple women under Patangay’s supervision reported the discrimination to HR, which documented the complaints, but CZI nonetheless kept Patangay in a managerial role. According to his resume on LinkedIn, Patangay appears to have been promoted during the period Siteman says he was fostering a hostile work environment, moving from a senior director role to multiple vice president positions within the organization.
Currently, Patangay serves as CZI’s vice president of AI, infrastructure, and security. He previously worked at Facebook for ten years, from 2008 to 2018, where he started as a senior software engineer. Patangay could not be reached for comment by press time.
The court documents also state that Siteman was paid significantly less than her male colleagues, including those who reported to her, and that the Mark Zuckerberg-founded organization opened a retaliatory investigation into Siteman after she formally complained about the discrimination to HR.
“We strongly support equal pay and have a transparent process for hiring, compensation, and promotion reviews,” Gina Antonini, a spokesperson for Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, told Gazetteer SF. “We maintain rigorous protocols, including biannual compensation reviews, to help ensure that all employees are paid fairly and equitably. An investigation by an independent third party found no merit to these claims.”
The experience working under Patangay was allegedly so psychologically and physically harmful that Siteman went on stress-induced medical leave in August 2025, according to the court documents.
Several other female employees also allegedly requested transfers, took medical leave, or quit, the lawsuit claims.
Siteman has worked at the Initiative, which funds education and science programs, since 2019, where she oversees security and AI operations and founded a “Women in Tech” employee resource group. From 2022 to 2024, Siteman served as a data security consultant under the Biden administration. She also worked for Facebook for about three and a half years, from 2015 to 2019.
In February this year, Siteman extended her medical leave through mid-April, the documents state. She appears to still be employed by the organization.
