On Sept. 6, court papers announced that Bank of America had agreed to pay $39 million to settle Calibuso v. Bank of America, a nationwide gender discrimination class action on behalf of female stockbrokers. No. 10 Civ. 1413, Docket No. 1 (EDNY filed March 30, 2010) (The authors’ firm was counsel of record for the plaintiffs). In the lawsuit, filed in 2010, the plaintiffs alleged that the bank paid them less than male stockbrokers and gave them fewer opportunities to build their books of business. While the settlement is a great “win” for the plaintiffs, it raises an important question: Do lawsuits really help remove barriers to women getting ahead on Wall Street?
Since Title VII was enacted in 1964, women have been struggling to find pay and promotion equity across every industry in the United States. In no other industry is this struggle more palpable and obvious than in high finance. Over the decades, relatively few women have taken on the tremendous professional risk entailed by suing a Wall Street firm for gender discrimination. Those lawsuits that women have filed, however, show how this struggle has evolved.
