Six former employees at Morgan Stanley are asking to be released from confidentiality agreements, citing their desire to speak freely on racial discrimination at the investment bank. The request comes a month after the bank's former diversity chief had filed a lawsuit claiming that the company discriminated against women of color. The letter was directed to the board of directors, and gave as an example a former executive director who had been let go, presumably as part of the firm's planned "reduction in force", but who had only months earlier proposed a diversity initiative to several executives. The lawsuit alleges “systemic racial discrimination” in the firm’s hiring, retention and lack of promotion of black employees, claiming that fewer than 3% of the 1,382 managing directors since 2012 are black.
See "Former employees at Morgan Stanley ask to be released from non-disclosure agreements, allege racial discrimination", Edward Helmore, The Guardian, July 22, 2020