JPMorgan Chase Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Investigation

Campbell joined JPMorgan Chase’s Wealth Management division in October 2020, after a successful 30 years on Wall Street. Barron’s, Forbes, The Financial Times, and Working Mother have recognized her over the course of her career. She describes a ‘toxic workplace environment,’ where her male colleagues stole her clients, excluded her from meetings, and ‘belittled’ her.

In a self-published Medium essay from April 2022, Campbell reported that J.P. Morgan Wealth Management tried to steal her clients by bribing them with favorable loans, damaging her reputation, and preventing clients from sending assets to Campbell. According to a CBS article, Campbell’s lawsuit asserts that losing clients ‘has deprived Campbell of millions of dollars of compensation as a result of having client transactions poached by other divisions of the bank.’

She alleges that the discrimination started before her first day. A colleague informed her that the manager told a group of colleagues that he prefers to hire male financial advisors but was told he ‘had to hire a woman.’ She also recalls being called ‘confused’ and told to ‘be nice.’ Meanwhile, she was denied regular tech access—her remote workstation was not set up until a year into her employment.

In her EEOC complaint, she outlines the discrimination and retaliation she faced for speaking up at JP Morgan. According to Campbell, senior executives have acknowledged the conduct, but have done nothing to stop it.

She alleges that other female advisors have confided in her about similar treatment they receive from their male colleagues. Campbell raised her concerns for over a year to senior executives, HR, and through the firm’s Code of Conduct process. Her efforts yielded no remedy.

Campbell is currently waiting to see if the EEOC opens an investigation.

Campbell isn’t alone in filing a complaint against her bank employer for alleged sex discrimination.

In 2013, Bank of America paid over $38 million in a class action settlement involving 4,800 women for gender discrimination.

Morgan Stanley settled two major sexual discrimination suits in a span of just three years – one in 2004 for $54 million, and one in 2007 for $70 million.

According to a 2017 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Wells Fargo regularly punished female employees at a “substantially higher rate relative to male advisers,” with female financial planners more than 25% likely to experience a “job separation” after misconduct than male financial planners, as reported by Fortune.

In 2020, Wells Fargo paid $7.8 million to settle nationwide claims that it discriminated against Black and female job applicants.