Discrimination on Wall St.? The Numbers Tell the Story

By PATRICK McGEEHAN

Published: July 14, 2004

 

uring several years of drawn-out litigation over how they treat the women they employ, Wall Street firms have adamantly disputed all contentions that they discriminate - until the time has come to do the math.

In a sex discrimination lawsuit that Morgan Stanley settled on Monday, as in those that Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney settled in the late 1990's, executives decided not to go public with their track records of hiring, paying and promoting women. In each case, labor lawyers said, the numbers painted a picture that would have been hard to defend.

...

The industry's own numbers look more lopsided. The Securities Industry Association says that more than half of all the employees in the securities industry are white men but, more important, white men fill about four out of five executive management positions and make up more than 70 percent of investment bankers, traders and brokers.