Goldman Sachs settles a $215M gender-discrimination lawsuit that put “boys’ club” culture on blast
Payday delayed… Goldman Sachs agreed to one of the largest settlements ever for a gender-discrimination lawsuit, wrapping up a 13-year-old case weeks before it was set to go to trial. The suit said the investment-banking behemoth paid female vice presidents 20% less than male VPs and called out the bank's performance-review process as favoring men. Goldman’s expected to pay $215M to about 2.8K women (minus legal fees), or around $47K each.
- More than $$: The settlement also requires Goldman to hire an outside expert to look into how it goes about performance reviews, promotions, and pay equity.
Wall Street women… Goldman’s not the first bank to be accused of shorting its women employees. In 1998, Smith Barney (which became part of Citigroup, then Morgan Stanley) paid $150M to 2K women claiming a hostile workplace rife with pay disparity and derogatory language. Not to be left out, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley have also settled suits alleging discrimination.
The #s: Women made up a record 29% of Goldman’s most recent partner class, and about a quarter of senior leaders are women at Morgan Stanley.
Boys’ club: Jane Fraser was named Citi’s CEO in 2021, becoming the first woman to lead a major US bank.
The gender pay gap is stuck… Women made 82 cents on the dollar compared to men last year, which is only 2 cents more than they made in 2002. (FYI: female CEOs of S&P 500 companies only recently outnumbered CEOs named “John.”) Meanwhile, a McKinsey report found that companies with more women executives usually outperform those with fewer.