The $54 million settlement of a sex discrimination case against Morgan Stanley last year includes $40 million that will go to 67 current and former female employees who filed successful claims. The plaintiffs in the case alleged systematic bias in pay and job opportunities between 1995 and 2004. This is the second-largest sex discrimination settlement in history, and Morgan Stanley will additionally pay $12 million to former saleswoman Allison Schieffelin, who brought the suit, and put $2 million towards the company’s diversity efforts, reports Bloomberg News. Schieffelin brought the suit along with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). New York District EEOC regional attorney Elizabeth Grossman told Reuters, “We are hopeful that this suit has changed the discriminatory practices common to Wall Street.”
Women remain only 30 percent of business school students, reports Reuters, and in interviews cited the grueling 90 hour work weeks and persistent “locker-room” attitudes as factors in women’s reluctance to enter or remain in financial careers. Ellen Schubert, who runs a leading financial firm’s global foreign exchange hedge fund business, told Reuters that it continues to be “hard for women to find natural mentors in a male-dominated business.”
