EEOC v. Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley is leading global financial services firm that consistently lands a spot on the Fortune 500, a list of U.S. companies with the highest revenues. Headquartered in New York, it has more than 80,000 employees around the world, of whom 53,000 are based in the Americas.

The workers who stood up against discrimination helped expose a culture of bias that had long gone unchallenged, which produced a groundbreaking settlement that confronted Wall Street’s deeply rooted “bro culture.” Their case led to the first-ever EEOC settlement with a securities firm and the second-largest the agency had obtained through litigation, the New York Times reported at the time. Their courage didn’t just make headlines—it made history.

According to the allegations, women at Morgan Stanley faced a workplace culture that tolerated encouraged sexism. They were routinely shut out of key networking opportunities, including client outings and social events that included visits to strip clubs.

After Schieffelin filed her complaint with the EEOC, Morgan Stanley began retaliating against her by undercutting her ability to do her job successfully, such as by taking away some of her responsibilities, publicly criticizing her with exaggerated or baseless critiques, and marking her down in performance evaluations, she said. Its retaliation culminated in firing her after she had a verbal argument with her supervisor, which her supervisor provoked by unjustly criticizing her, she said.

To create a better work environment for women, the consent decree also required Morgan Stanley to conduct trainings on gender discrimination and diversity, review employee complaints to uncover patterns, examine how it made promotion and compensation decisions, and that support women’s careers. It agreed to appoint in-house and external monitors to ensure it followed through.