Ex-Morgan Stanley Exec Says He Was Fired for Being White

A white former Morgan Stanley broker and executive sued the wirehouse on Tuesday in New York, alleging he was fired and replaced by a less-qualified Black woman.

In a complaint filed at U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, Kevin Meyersburg alleged that, while with Morgan Stanley as managing director and head of Executive Services, he “developed an impressive list of achievements.”

Those achievements, the complaint said, included “creating and spearheading Executive Services Partner Referral Programs that resulted in over 3,000 new wealth management accounts and $5 billion in wealth management assets under management for the Firm.”

Additionally, “under his leadership, the Firm’s Executive Services team grew from 50 to 330 employees, nearly tripled in budget size and played a pivotal role in generating profits for Morgan Stanley during a period when other divisions struggled to be profitable,” the complaint alleged.

In about April 2023, the wirehouse started announcing a series of layoffs because of its recent financial “underperformance,” according to the complaint. The company “implemented the majority of the layoffs by combining and collapsing similar teams,” it said.

However, due to its “Morgan Stanley did not target Meyersburg’s Executive Services team for elimination nor did it lay off a significant number of employees from the Executive Services team,” the complaint stated.

But “Morgan Stanley informed Meyersburg on May 11, 2023, that he was being terminated and replaced in the Managing Director role that he had held for nearly three years with a Black female with significantly less experience and qualifications for the position,” the complaint alleged.

While firing him, the firm “did not point to any deficiency in Meyersburg’s work performance or otherwise in justifying his termination and replacement,” the complaint alleged, saying the firing was due to the firm’s attempt to meet its diversity and inclusion goals.

“In other words, Morgan Stanley unlawfully terminated Meyersburg’s employment because of his sex, race, and/or color,” the complaint alleged.

Meyersburg is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, reinstatement and monetary damages to “redress [the] unlawful discrimination against him” on the basis of his sex, race, and/or color (White), in violation of Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law, according to the complaint.

Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the allegations.

Meyersburg was registered as a broker with E-Trade from 2006 to 2023 and with Morgan Stanley from 2022 to 2023, according to his report on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck website. Morgan Stanley bought E-Trade in 2020 for $13 billion.

The wirehouse, meanwhile, has been the target of discrimination complaints before. The firm’s former head of diversity sued in 2020, alleging it discriminated against Black women.

Morgan Stanley headquarters in New York. Photo: Bloomberg.