Al Gore’s War on Women

Ellen Pao, investment partner with the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, is suing the firm for sexual harassment and gender discrimination. According to Techcrunch:

In the complaint filed May 10 in San Francisco Superior Court (which is embedded below in its entirety), Pao claims that she was the victim of sexual harassment by Ajit Nazre, a former Kleiner Perkins investment partner who departed the firm late last year. When contacted today, a Kleiner Perkins spokesperson declined to detail the specifics of why he departed.

The suit also alleges that she, along with other female employees at the firm, were regularly left out of meetings held by the firm’s male partners and that she was unfairly passed over for promotions because of her gender and her response to Nazre’s advances. High profile Kleiner Perkins partners John Doerr, Ray Lane, Bing Gordon, Ted Schlein, Chi-Hua Chien, are among those named in the suit.

Kleiner Perkins is run by major Democratic donor John Doerr and former Vice President Al Gore is a partner of the firm. Gore has had his own issues with women; in 2010, he was investigated by authorities in Portland, Oregon, for the alleged sexual abuse of a female masseur.

Doerr served on President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board in 2009. He helped design the president’s $787 billion stimulus package.

Kleiner Perkins has given more than $1 million to Democrats since 2005.