One week after James Gorman announced that Morgan Stanley would diversify his leadership and spend millions of dollars to raise up his black executives, a woman who spent 16 years responsible for diversity in the company called it a hypocrite.
Marilyn Booker, a 26-year-old Morgan Stanley veteran who left in December, sued the $ 895 billion financial services company, Gorman and Chief Administrative Officer Barry Krouk for racial discrimination.
“Black life is not important at Morgan Stanley,” Booker claimed in his federal lawsuit in Brooklyn.
Booker said that he was hampered from doing his work for years, including budget cuts that were so severe that he had to put them in his own pocket for events.
To add insult to injury, he was fired unofficially in December only to wake up six months later for a story in the New York Post about Gorman throwing money at diversity because he was so “moved” by protesting national racial injustice, he said.
As The Post reported on June 9, Gorman told staff that George Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis police inspired him to promote two black women, create a new $ 25 million institution in Morgan Stanley dedicated to diversity and donated $ 5 million to the NAACP.
“The pain, fear, sadness and anger felt by the black community, and also by most people around the world, can be touched,” Gorman wrote at the time.
But Booker said his budget under Gorman was cut so badly that he was forced to spend “thousands of dollars alone just to attend events that promote diversity so Morgan Stanley would not be shy to leave without being represented.”
And when he was released on December 9, 2019, he was told that his position focusing on diversity was only removed.
“While Gorman was quick to pay for lip service and throw money on the diversity issue at Morgan Stanley because he suddenly ‘moved,’ when it was Ms. Booker’s job to do that … Morgan Stanley did nothing but actively retain her ability to do it, “he said.
Booker sought compensation in the amount to be determined by the jury at the trial.
Morgan Stanley did not respond to requests for comment.
