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Sexual Orientation Bias?Morgan Stanley > The Curry Scandal > Sexual Orientation and Racial Discrimination

Sexual Orientation Discrimination at Morgan Stanley?
Christian Leigh Curry, a black former employee of Morgan Stanley's real estate department, filed a lawsuit against his former employee alleging discrimination based on his perceived sexual orientation, a violation of new York law. He was fired on grounds of padding his expense accounts, even though no warnings had been given, just a few days after his nude photos appeared in a gay porn magazine Playguy.

Mr. Curry claimed that he himself was not gay but the company thought he was gay because of his photos in the gay magazines. He claimed that his colleagues called him a "monkey" and a "faggot," and that one manager said he had "never seen someone laugh so hard as when I showed the magazine of that faggot" to another member of the firm.

Racial Discrimination Allegations Too?
Mr. Curry is the son of a prominent well-to-do black family and had his education at Columbia University. His father was one of the few minority members of the selective Shinnecock Hills club.

He claimed that a senior white member of his department one day saw him wearing a Shinnecock Hills tie and remarked: "That club is very exclusive. Are you a caddie?" According to him he was also asked to "put on an Afro" wig and fake oversize lips in front of Bill Lewis, who is black and a member of Morgan's real-estate department, at a company Christmas party.

According to media, Mr. Curry has privately admitted to a mutual friend that he did not actually see the words "monkey" and "faggot" written on his desk at Morgan Stanley. Moreover, though Reverend Al Sharpton led a protest for him at the firm's headquarters on July 15, 1999, apparently the very same night, Sharpton attended a party for Black Enterprise publisher Earl Graves, and he was approached by a number of black leaders -- including Johnnie Cochran; Hugh Price, head of the National Urban League; and Morgan Stanley's Bill Lewis -- who said Sharpton "didn't fully understand the Curry situation and what he was getting involved in." Sharpton didn't hold any further protests on Curry's behalf.

His relationship with the black community was difficult to access. Once he had given $100,000 to the John Starks Foundation (for disadvantaged youths). Finally, when the settlement with Morgan Stanley was announced, the company did provide $1 million for a black organization, Urban League.

Discrimination Law Suit
Curry's lawyer, Benedict Morelli, files a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Morgan accusing it of racial and sexual orientation discrimination. The 26-page document filed in State Supreme Court named 13 individuals from the firm as defendants, including John Mack, the firm's president and chief operating officer; Philip Purcell, chief executive, and Carol Bernheim, the in-house counsel. Within a few days, Morgan Stanley suspends two lawyers and Christine Edwards resigns. Morgan's chairman, Philip Purcell, admitted that the firm made serious mistakes.

Case Number 99-cv-4035 Christian L. Curry v. Morgan Stanley, came to an end in September 2000 when the attorney for Curry, Benedict Morelli of New York and attorney for Morgan - Martin London of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, New York, New York, settled in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with Judge Denny Chin presiding. There was no admission of fault by either party but a "donation" of $1 million by Morgan Stanley to the the National Urban League was part of the deal.