JPMorgan Chase is facing a discrimination lawsuit after a former employee alleged that his work supporting the bank’s LGBTQ+ employees went from being part of his job to something his supervisor allegedly wanted him to keep in a separate little box labeled “gay job.”
RELATED: Grindr CEO Finally Explains the $500 Subscription Mystery
Brian Larson, a former senior associate who joined JPMorgan Chase through its Chase Associate Program in 2021, filed suit Wednesday in the Southern District of New York. He alleges that the bank discriminated against him on the basis of sex in violation of federal civil rights law, as well as New York state and city human rights laws.
Larson was appointed co-chair of PRIDE Tri-State, JPMorgan Chase’s LGBTQ+ Business Resource Group covering New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. According to the complaint, the role was supposed to support LGBTQ+ employees and help promote an inclusive workplace.
Instead, Larson alleges that one of his supervisors took issue with the amount of time he spent doing PRIDE-related work.
RELATED: Bestiality Becomes the Wildest Topic in Kash Patel’s Senate Hearing
The “Gay Job” Problem
According to the lawsuit, a manager called Larson into a meeting in June 2022 and questioned his involvement with PRIDE, allegedly describing the work as an “extracurricular activity” and telling him to keep his “gay job” separate from his other work.
The complaint also alleges that the supervisor told Larson “DEI wasn’t going to save [him].”
Larson says he reported the concerns to other supervisors and human resources. He then alleges that his treatment at work changed considerably.
According to the complaint, he was removed from projects, given more menial assignments and subjected to daily check-ins while colleagues had weekly meetings. Larson also alleges that his work with PRIDE was excluded from his performance review, despite an instruction from JPMorgan’s diversity chief that the work should be recognised.
His lawsuit says Larson had received positive reviews during other rotations but received a poor assessment following the dispute.
And if you’ve ever watched a workplace drama where one bad performance review somehow becomes the beginning of an entire administrative saga, you can probably guess where this goes.
An Invisible Wall
Larson alleges that the negative review ultimately affected his chances of landing a permanent position at JPMorgan Chase.
After completing the rotational programme, he says he applied for 50 internal positions. According to the complaint, he reached the final two candidates for between 35 and 40 of those jobs, but “he seemed to hit an invisible wall when his application advanced”.
That is one particularly strange detail in the lawsuit because, according to Larson’s allegations, he wasn’t simply applying and disappearing into the corporate void. He says he repeatedly made it deep into the process without securing one of the positions.
The complaint alleges that JPMorgan’s HR department investigated his discrimination concerns and told him in December 2022 there was “no credible evidence” of discrimination. Larson says he was not given an appeal process.
He later alleges that, in October 2023, the bank required him to resign or face dismissal while citing concerns about his trustworthiness. The complaint says those concerns included $40 in Uber expenses connected to his PRIDE work.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages for lost earnings, benefits and severe emotional distress, along with attorneys’ fees, interest and unspecified financial relief.
JPMorgan Chase disputes Larson’s allegations. A company spokesperson told Forbes that the bank “takes these allegations very seriously and after a thorough internal investigation we found no evidence to substantiate Mr. Larson’s claims.”
The Office Culture Was Apparently Its Own Side Plot
Larson’s complaint also describes conversations he allegedly had with other LGBTQ+ employees about workplace culture at JPMorgan Chase. One employee allegedly told him they thought the company was “lowkey homophobic.”
Another story in the complaint involves JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and the Kinsey scale, a seven-point system used to describe sexual orientation along a spectrum rather than as a strict binary.
According to the lawsuit, a gay employee told Larson that Dimon had asked them to explain the Kinsey scale. Dimon allegedly then joked that he “could be 17% gay.”
The complaint says Larson found the joke “both odd and offensive” and that “to say the least, he was surprised to hear that the CEO of JPMorgan was making identity-based jokes.” Those claims are part of Larson’s lawsuit and have not been established in court.
JPMorgan Has Faced Other Discrimination Claims
Larson’s case is not the first discrimination lawsuit involving JPMorgan Chase. Earlier this year, former financial adviser George Gile filed a federal discrimination and retaliation lawsuit. Gile, who identifies as bisexual, alleged that management pressured him to feature his sexual orientation prominently in marketing campaigns.
After he asked to withdraw the marketing because of safety concerns and public pushback, he alleged that the firm retaliated by sharply reducing his travel and expense budget, withholding account reassignments and subjecting him to unwanted sexual advances from a senior colleague. JPMorgan Chase denied those allegations.
In 2015, former vice president Jesus Leon sued the bank, alleging disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Leon, who is HIV positive, alleged that JPMorgan failed to accommodate physician-ordered limits on his working hours, worsening his health and ultimately ending his employment.
JPMorgan Chase, like many large financial institutions, also uses mandatory arbitration agreements in employment contracts, meaning some workplace disputes may be resolved outside a public courtroom.
For Larson, however, the question now playing out in federal court is much more specific: whether his alleged treatment was connected to his sexual orientation and his work with the company’s own LGBTQ+ employee group.
Because apparently even at a major bank, “gay job” can become a phrase with considerably more baggage than anyone ordered on the corporate expense report.
The allegations in Larson’s lawsuit remain allegations. JPMorgan Chase has denied that its internal investigation found evidence supporting his claims, and the case will now proceed through the legal process.
Source: Forbes, Bloomberg, and Independent