Spencer Lindquist – Daily Wire Aug 16, 2024

America’s most powerful financial institutions appear to be promoting young professionals on the basis of race and sex in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo both hosted summer programs that barred white men unless they happened to be disabled, a veteran, or identify as LGBT. Goldman Sachs held career advancement summits tailored to students of specific demographic backgrounds, while JP Morgan hosted a scholarship and internship program that openly excluded white and Asian students. Bank of America, meanwhile, ran a “diversity fellowship” program that solicited applicants from non-white, non-Asian racial backgrounds.

The programs collectively furthered the leftwing DEI agenda, which presupposes certain demographic groups benefit from undue privilege at the expense of oppressed groups. Corporations across various industries have established racially-based hiring and advancement programs to rectify this alleged injustice by engaging in anti-white, and in some cases, anti-Asian discrimination, which may run afoul of the law.

The financial industry’s embrace of DEI could be disastrous, New Founding CEO Nate Fischer told The Daily Wire.

“The move to DEI reflects a broader trend away from even aiming for the entrepreneurial investment of capital—a primary driver of wealth creation in our country—and toward a bureaucratic, formulaic model of capital allocation that rewards large bureaucratic corporations and other politically connected parties rather than those with the potential to produce strong returns,” Fischer explained.

Morgan Stanley’s Early Insights program, a summer training program that teaches undergraduate students about the financial field, is aimed specifically at those who come from “historically underrepresented populations” and gives participants the opportunity to apply for a summer analyst position.

“One way we demonstrate our commitment to diversity is through our Summer Internship Programs,” Morgan Stanley says, calling it “an integral part of our diversity recruiting efforts.”

“Historically underrepresented populations in the finance industry include: women, Hispanic, Black, veteran, disabled, LGBTQ+, and first-generation college student populations,” Morgan Stanley states under the header “eligibility requirements.”

Morgan Stanley is far from the only financial institution that appears to discriminate against white and Asian men. Wells Fargo also hosted an MBA Diversity Fellowship that similarly steers applicants into a summer internship program and offers $35,000 towards the MBA programs of those who accept and complete the internship program.

“The fellowship is designed to be a best-in-class program to pipeline high-potential underrepresented candidates into our Investment Banking Summer Associate Program,” Wells Fargo states. The institution goes on to explain that the term “underrepresented candidates” includes those who are “female, Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic, Asian, Native American/Alaskan Native and LGBTQIA+ students, as well as protected veterans and people with disabilities.”

Goldman Sachs Possibilities Summits does not appear to be racially-biased at first blush, merely intended for undergraduate students who want to “cultivate top industry skills and explore the wealth of opportunities available at Goldman Sachs.”

But the company hosts several summits, each aimed at a different identity group. There’s the “Black Possibilities Summit,” “HBCU Possibilities Summit,” “Hispanic/Latinx Possibilities Summit,” and the “Women’s Possibilities Summit.” White and Asian men only appear to be eligible if they meet the criteria of other identity-based summits for those who identify as LGBT, are veterans, attend a City of New York school, or are disabled.

A now-deleted page from JP Morgan advertised an undergraduate scholarship and internship program that appeared to explicitly engage in racial discrimination against white and Asian students. The details of JP Morgan’s “Launching Leaders Undergraduate Program” have been preserved on the Baruch College website.

“The program is open to Black, Hispanic and Native American sophomores and juniors from all majors who are interested in financial services and have a 3.5 GPA minimum,” the description reads. “The Launching Leaders Undergraduate Scholarship includes internship opportunities, as well as scholarships of up to $15,000. It gives talented Black, Hispanic and Native American students the chance to fulfill their career ambitions.”

A spokeswoman for JP Morgan told The Daily Wire that the company has not hosted the program for “many years,” but did not respond when asked if the company was willing to state on the record that it would not host discriminatory internship programs in the future.

Bank of America’s MBA Diversity Fellowship Program “will award merit-based fellowships to individuals who are Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, military veterans, LGBT+, students with disabilities and women in their first year of business school.”

The financial institution adds a caveat, however, and explains “while our goal is to target underrepresented groups, all eligible students regardless of background are encouraged to apply.”

While many of these internship and career opportunity postings do not explicitly bar people from certain backgrounds from applying, they do indicate that those from certain backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply, and necessitate that those from white or Asian backgrounds meet other criteria that those from other backgrounds are not required to meet as a condition of eligibility.

David Bernstein, a professor at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia School of Law, told The Daily Wire that companies may still be engaging in illegal discrimination even if they technically allow certain qualified whites or Asians into programs.

“If you are giving illegal preferences based on race, they don’t become lawful because you are also giving other preferences not based on race,” Bernstein explained.

He added that the Biden administration appears to have adopted the perspective that programs like those from these financial institutions do not constitute discrimination before calling this approach “clearly inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) does discuss job recruitment and advertising practices, specifically barring those that show racial preferences.

“It is illegal for an employer to publish a job advertisement that shows a preference for or discourages someone from applying for a job because of his or her race, color, religion, sex,” the EEOC explains. “It is also illegal for an employer to recruit new employees in a way that discriminates against them.”

The financial and banking sectors are hardly the only industries that have openly discriminated against white and Asian applicants, however. A series of investigations from The Daily Wire revealed that DEI discrimination is commonplace across a range of different industries.

NASCAR, for example, hosted two different internships that explicitly listed certain racial backgrounds as program requirements, only omitting white people. Bernstein told The Daily Wire that NASCAR’s program requirements were “blatantly illegal.”

The owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, recently came under fire after it was revealed that his company, the Kraft Group, listed a job posting that was only open to those who are “BIPOC,” an acronym that stands for “black, indigenous, people of color.”

Multiple major tech companies have also held programs that discriminate against white and Asian people on the basis of their race. The Daily Wire revealed that Oracle hosted internship and scholarship opportunities that barred both whites and Asians, with approved racial groups being listed under the program’s “eligibility requirements.”

Apple hosted an entrepreneur training program that required participating companies to have “a black, Hispanic/Latinx, or Indigenous founder, cofounder, or CEO” as well as a developer from the same racial and ethnic backgrounds, The Daily Wire revealed.

Corporations from across different sectors, including Bayer Pharmaceuticals, US Bank, Best Buy, and Liberty Mutual all participated in a training program from McKinsey and Company that barred white people on the basis of their race.

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