Morgan Stanley invested heavily in DEI in 2020, adding an Institute for Inclusion and making other moves after George Floyd’s death.
The initiatives have caused nothing but internal strife and more divisions, according to The Wall Street Journal. The complaints come from white and minority employees.
These employees claim the initiatives led to a more “divisive culture” with fewer winners than before.
Morgan Stanley vowed to hire more minorities, especially among its executive ranks.
Black employees exploded when they found out Morgan Stanley underpaid them. Ouch:
In interviews with more than two dozen current and former employees and others close to the firm, some Black staffers said they got little support after being recruited through a minority training program launched in 2021. Others said they were poached from competitors, but to lower-level roles than they had previously held or to positions that were eliminated within a year or two.Anthony Fletcher, who runs a Chicago-area recruiting firm contracted in the effort to bring more Black employees on board, recalled asking one of Morgan Stanley’s regional diversity officers why so many of his recruits weren’t getting bigger jobs.The reply: White financial advisers wouldn’t respect them, and it would be problematic for the firm, said Fletcher, who sent a letter to Gorman and the board outlining his concerns, and then sued Morgan Stanley for discrimination and unpaid fees in 2023.
Berdina Moore-Bonds sued Morgan Stanley last month, alleging the company denied her promotions that went to non-black employees who did not have her qualifications.
Holy moly, you guys:
Black staffers received emails starting in 2021 welcoming them to an online Black leadership program they hadn’t asked to be part of. The six-month McKinsey program included discussions on race and presenters teaching strategies such as tackling “common mindset challenges for Black leaders.”In interviews, some invitees said they wondered why employees of other races weren’t included and likened the program to “special education” for Black employees. Senior Morgan Stanley executives, on the other hand, said they saw McKinsey’s offer to put on the program as an opportunity to support up-and-coming Black employees. Employees of all races have recently been invited to participate.
In 2020, Marilyn Booker, the woman hired in 1994 to head the diversity department, sued Morgan Stanley after the company fired her. Booker alleged the company fired her because she wanted to make diversity changes faster.
But she also claimed the company treated her as a “token” employee:
Marilyn Booker spent more than 25 years at the Wall Street brokerage, where she was one of few black women at the managing-director rank, the firm’s highest. She said in a court filing that her budget for diversity efforts was repeatedly cut, that she was “trotted out” as a token minority at public events, and that she was belittled by white colleagues while watching more than a dozen black executives leave the firm since 2017.“The sentiment at the firm was ‘good riddance’ and ‘glad to see you go,’ rather than, ‘why are they leaving us?’ or ‘how could we do better?’” she said in a court filing. “In contrast, when white [managing directors] left or sought to leave, the firm made significant efforts to retain them.”
Morgan Stanley’s spokespeople have dismissed all of these complaints. You know, with the usual, “Everything is fine. Nothing to see here.”
White executives felt pressure “to hire nonwhite candidates, even without the right experience, or to refrain from ousting underperforming ones.”
Kevin Meyersburg, a white man, sued Morgan Stanley over his firing, claiming HR did not allow him to fire underperforming “employees because they were women or minority employees.”
Morgan Stanley would not fire those people because they were “diverse employees.”
A month after Meyersburg submitted his list, his boss told him Morgan Stanley fired him and replaced him with a black managing director:
A month later, the boss told Meyersburg over lunch that he was being laid off and replaced by a Black managing director. When Meyersburg pressed for a reason, the boss shrugged his shoulders and said it wasn’t about his performance, according to the suit. Then he asked: Would Meyersburg be willing to get his replacement up to speed? The boss worried the replacement lacked experience. Meyersburg declined.A year earlier, Meyersburg’s base salary had been nearly doubled and he was awarded a $400,000 bonus for what the boss said at the time was recognition of his performance. When Meyersburg expressed his confusion about being laid off to another managing director, that person replied that it was because of DEI initiatives, Meyersburg’s suit said.
President Donald Trump has made moves to eliminate DEI since it has been shown to cause even more discrimination.
Morgan Stanley announced three weeks ago it would water down its diversity initiatives in the last report. From USA Today:
The report omitted the bank’s past statement that “a diverse and inclusive workforce is important to Morgan Stanley’s continued success.”Instead, the report now says: “meritocracy is at the heart of Morgan Stanley’s talent development” and “a workforce that represents the societies in which we live and work, and our global client base, is integral to Morgan Stanley’s continued success.”
My gosh, why is it so hard to hire people based on qualifications? I have an idea. Apply with a number. Do not allow names, race, sex, religion, etc.
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