Bank of America to Settle Gender Discrimination Case

Brad McCurdy

Professor Hord

September 8, 2013

BUS 343-02

Bank of America to Settle Gender Discrimination Case

        Bank of America has puts itself on the news a couple times in these past couple of weeks, and for the wrong reasons. In the past two weeks Bank of America has dealt with two Gender Discrimination cases, and both are looking as if they will end on a poor note.  The article I am going to talk about has to deal with Gender Discrimination against women, but in the men’s favor in the investment advice division at Bank of America.  The case we described as so: the company had been systematically handing the more well known and wealthy clients to the men of Bank of America, and “undermining women’s compensation and professional opportunities in ways that violate anti-discrimination provisions of U.S. civil rights law.”(PYKE) As I mentioned before this was not the first time this type of case had popped up for Bank of America.

The earlier settlement was “suppose” to get rid of this type of action from going on in their company, but this case was stated to almost be the exact same case as not only the previous case, but one that was brought up in the early 1990’s, which was settled at a quarter of a billion dollars.  This article also mentions how this case mirrored the case the week before, saying it was “the largest racial discrimination payout on record at roughly four times the size of Friday’s gender discrimination payout.”(PYKE)

The most recent case at Bank of America is looking to settle and pay thirty-nine million dollars, and it will be divided up between approximately forty-eight hundred women who work not only at Bank of America, but its subsidiary Merrill Lynch as well.  Both of these cases have guaranteed to help structure a better working environment and workforce to improve career openings and guidance for women as well as minorities. This article also states that Bank of America is so male driven that Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms included “A requirement that firms improve their gender and racial diversity.” (PYKE) Studies have shown that female and minorities make up about twenty-six percent and ten percent of management positions.

        This article can reveal a lot not only about Bank of America, but problems we still face in our society today. These problems are still lingering around, even though we passed the Civil Rights Act more than fifty years ago. After reading this article, a few thoughts had come to my head. One being the negative vibe it brings about Bank of America. If you are a woman seeking a new job opportunity, and you see problems like this coming out in the news, you made fade your decision away from even considering working at a place such as Bank of America. If they still have major problems, such as this Gender Discrimination, one can only hesitate about her decision.