On Tuesday, an equal rights group publicly called on investment bank Morgan Stanley to shut down an internship program that explicitly describes itself as only open to non-White applicants.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, a letter was sent to Morgan Stanley by the Project on Fair Representation, warning that the bank’s internship violated federal non-discrimination laws. The 2022 Freshman Enhancement Program is described on Morgan Stanley’s website as only available to “black, Hispanic, Native American, and/or LGBTQ+ freshman undergraduate student[s].” The internship has been promoted by several Ivy League schools, including Princeton University.
“Morgan Stanley and Princeton are leading institutions in our culture,” says the group’s letter. “What you do matters not only because it affects the individuals involved, but also because you set an influential example for others.”
“Pandering to activists with ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives like this internship program is actively harming and racializing our already divided country,” the letter continues.
The letter, addressed to Morgan Stanley’s chief legal officer Eric Grossman and Princeton’s general counsel Ramona Romero, declares that any legal challenge to the program would most likely see it struck down by a court.
“It is difficult to understand how these programs passed internal legal review,” the letter notes, “in light of the clear statutory prohibitions discussed above.”
Morgan Stanley’s deliberate pandering to minorities is indicative of a broader trend seen throughout the country in the aftermath of the race riots in 2020. After the death of George Floyd, a black man who died of a fentanyl overdose while in police custody in Minneapolis, protests erupted in dozens of cities across the country, accusing America of being a “systemically racist” nation guilty of “police brutality” to non-Whites. Hundreds of businesses and other properties were destroyed by arson and looting, causing billions of dollars in damage, and several dozen American citizens were murdered in the streets by rioters.