Goldman Sachs, the "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity," gave its largest donation ever to the Harlem Children’s Zone yesterday. Goldman Sachs Gives, a fund supported by the investment company and its partners, gave $20 million to the charter school operators, toward the creation of a new school and community center at Harlem’s St. Nicholas Houses. Their massive donation (some perspective: $20 million is approximately what Goldman earns in 1/2 a day) comes on the heels of a major gender bias lawsuit, which the more cynical among us may say is convenient timing for such an announcement.
Former VP Cristina Chen-Oster, former managing director Lisa Parisi, and former associate Shanna Orlich accuse Goldman of a persistent pattern of bias toward its female employees, including a noticeable lack of women in top managerial positions. The NY Times recaps some of the details and accusations: Chen-Oster, who worked at the company for nearly a decade, said she experienced “increased hostility and marginalization at the firm” after a married colleague kissed and groped her following an employee celebration at strip club Scores. Orlich paints the company as a boy's club, with push-up contests and frequent golf outings which she was never invited to (despite being a varsity golf player in high school). The lawsuit also claims that a managing director also hired scantily clad female escorts wearing Santa hats to attend a holiday party.
Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon questions the appropriateness of business events taking place at strip clubs, which she believes is plenty common; instead of a glass ceiling, she calls it "the mirrored ceiling covered in stripper-heel scuff marks:" "When this all goes down as part of a work event, though, things get complicated. When women are excluded from strip club outings, they miss out on networking and deal-making that can be critical to their career climb."
Former Goldman employee Nomi Prins writes that she's unsurprised about the lawsuit, but that money is the only important signifier for the company: "The truth is, I left because... I know exactly what I need to do to be successful here, and I have no desire to do it... And part of that was due to the fact that I was sick of haggling with the men in my chain and the soulless pursuit of promotion and pay, and wanted my life to take another direction."
