I received a written rejection from a software company stating that they would only consider non-males for junior dev roles. It seems like a lot of people just think this sort of thing is acceptable so they have no problem telling people about it.
You should contact Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division. If what you say is true and you have this on paper, you should be able to get some actual justice on this. You can start filing a report here: https://civilrights.justice.gov/
I would implore you to do this — we have unfortunately allowed this kind of thing to happen in our industry for far too long. My condolences.
The DFEH received an argument from the company along the lines of "The applicant did not fill out the official application on our web site, therefor they did not apply, therefor we did not discriminate against them" and agreed with it. So it's ok then for employees of the company to advertise an opening, to tell people that the way to apply for the opening is to email them directly, and to reply to the emails with rejections on the basis of gender, as long as some other part of the company also has some other application process!
I have not followed up on the issue because my disability means that I have extremely limited capacity for this sort of thing and spending enormous amounts of that capacity for a minuscule chance at like $10,000 seems like a bad use of resources. I'm also no longer able to follow up on it! I understand that if I wanted justice, I had to get it within 18 months.
Edit: I filled out the form at the DoJ. It would be sweet if something came of all this, even if I don't personally benefit.
DFEH is understaffed by about 10000x because private attorneys do almost all of the enforcement. Get your right to sue letter, google “employment lawyer” and see if you have a case. They will do infinitely more than any government agency will.
I talked to a handful of these and they said I had a case and they hoped I could find someone else to take it. I really don't have the capacity to talk with a dozen lawyers to start a process that will take months and give me negative value. Also, my rights have expired.
I do not think rights in discrimination suits ever expire, for reasons you have cited exactly — the discriminated are usually in a disadvantaged position, don’t have the resources, time or the willingness. If an attorney told you your rights expire, was it your attorney? As in — were you paying them or was someone else doing the paying? Until you hear an attorney you pay say this, you probably have non-expiring rights.
This can't be too common, because all the anecdotes I hear are of the "I knew someone in the company and they confirmed it" kind, which would seem a bit unneccessary if people were regularly sending out "Sorry but you are too white and/or male to be employed" letters to people.
