The only thing more outrageous than Merrill lynch’s blatant and vicious hate crime is the fact that it has evaded justice for more than 3 years!!

“Civil rights is still the unfinished business of America. Prejudice, discrimination, and outright bigotry continue to limit the lives of large numbers of our people.” Senator Kennedy on occasion of presenting Civil Rights Act of 2008 to US senate.

“From a seat on a Montgomery bus to a seat on Merrill Lynch’s trading floor, the struggle for civil rights continues.” Majid Borumand

UNTOLD STORY OF AN AUDATIOUS HATE CRIME AND COVER UP BY MERRILL LYNCH, UNPRECEDENTED IN RECENT CORPORATE AMERICA’S HISTORY.

Jim Crow is alive and well at Merrill Lynch! Hyperbole, you think? Think again!

I was segregated from my peers, denied promotion, grossly underpaid and often harassed verbally because of my national origin and religious cultural heritage. In retaliation to standing up for my rights and since they could not question my highly praised performance and conduct (my last review at Merrill describes me as “very pleasant and extremely personable“!) they axed me under the pretext of “reduction in force” while Merrill Lynch was on a hiring spree adding a net of few thousands employees in months immediately prior and following my lay off! A mere two weeks prior to my dismissal I received an email from Merrill HR titled “New PhD recruiting effort“!! in that I was invited along all other PhD employees of firm, a total of 30 or so out of 60,000 employees, to attend a meeting to present our suggestion as how firm should go about hiring more PhDs!!! Not only I have a PhD in theoretical physics I have also a Masters degree in Mathematical finance! If you thought that’s where the bigotry ends you have no idea about the sick and repulsive racist culture at Merrill. After terminating me, my managers, Yonathan Epelbaum in coordination with HR and others had the audacity to promote a temp/contract employee whose contract was due to expire in less then two weeks in my place! Now, that conduct by itself can subject Merrill to the wrath of discrimination laws but you have heard nothing yet. You may think that this temp employee must have better or at least similar qualifications as I do with perhaps a PhD degree. I can tell, you have no idea about the depth of bigotry at Merrill. No, he did not have a PhD or even a Masters degree! This again would have been enough to seal Merrill’s fate in court, but wait! He did not even have a college degree! Yeah, a temp guy with a high school degree!

Promoting a temp with a meager high school degree to a Quantitative analyst (quant) group certainly is a first and likely the last of such favoritism/charlatanism on Wall street that traditionally employs quants with caliber of Noble laureates!! Merrill HR in their response to my charge filed with EEOC unabashedly claims that he had a better grasp of finance and financial mathematics than me!  Merrill went on to deny I was a quantitative analyst and lied to the news media, saying that I was a “senior programmer”. You are probably thinking:”wow! this is outrageous. This kind of overt bigotry still happens in America?!” But wait. Don’t rush to judgement! Merrill management is not that stupid to replace a PhD employee with a high school graduate just like that. There must be something wrong with this so called “PhD guy”! May be he wasn’t that good and they had to get rid of him. It must be it. Well, What follows will blow your mind away. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Merrill Lynch’s denial that I was a quantitative analyst comes as a flagrant contradiction to not just one but two petitions they filed on my behalf with US government (one in Nov 2003 with Labor department and another in Feb 2005 -just 3 months before my lay off!- with BCIS). In those petitions -both signed under penalty of perjury- they stated that I was, in their own words “eminently qualified” as a quantitative analyst and presented ample evidence to US government that I was the most qualified applicant they could find after searching, advertising and interviewing hundreds of candidates for months in order to fill the position for a quantitative analyst! They also stated the minimum requirement for such a position is a Masters degree in Mathematics or similar degrees. Merrill Lynch in effect made a mockery of federal laws with total impunity! If Merrill Lynch publicly and shamelessly denies the very same thing they signed on to under penalty of perjury, shouldn’t someone be going to Jail?! Where are the law enforcement officials? They kicked me out and promoted a guy who barely knew high school algebra (never mind freshman calculus, stochastic calculus or just about hundreds of other mathematical/financial course work, knowledge and skills required from a world class scientist) to a team of quantitative analysts who all had PhD in math and Physics?! This is as reckless, outrageous and ridiculous as sending a high school graduate to perform a brain surgery! No wonder Merrill Lynch has shown such spectacular performance and mastery of risk management lately! There is a point that words start to fail you. Is there no such thing as shame?! Civil rights advocates of this country should shudder realizing this shameless and brazen act of bigotry can happen in America decades after Civil Rights Act of 1964! Merrill Lynch time and again has been forced to pay millions of dollars in penalties for its bigotry towards, women, blacks and other minorities. That includes a $1.6 Million penalty for discriminating against and wrongful termination of yet another Iranian within months of my illegal termination. As for effectiveness of these measures you’d be the judge! It must be disconcerting to everyone who wonders in shock: how in the world a hate crime as vicious, blatant, egregious and documented as in my case has gone unpunished for more than 3 years?! How can one expect the corporate bigots to respect the civil rights of minorities if a hate crime as naked as this can be dragged this long at the expense of life and livelihood of the employee? Why a shameless Merrill management has been given such leeway to evade the justice for 3 years?! As long as corporate crooks and hate criminals can take refuge in such a slow judicial process and eventually get away with these kind of hate crimes by paying pennies in penalties they are not going to be discouraged from continuing their bigoted conduct as is proven time and again in case of Merrill Lynch management. There is much more to this ugly hate crime. You’ll find it in my law suit. Please spread the word.

MERRILL LYNCH WISDOM:

Following statements were made by Jim Gatheral a managing director of the firm:

“Majid, how can we trust you? How do we know you are a nice guy? May be you read Quran (Muslim’s holly book) and get ideas?”

“Quants are few like Israelis, we can not afford losing them. Traders on the other hand are plenty like Palestinians, we can afford losing them.” 

Update: June 08: At the time the law suit was filed Merrill Lynch spokesman said: “We respectfully, but strongly, disagree with the EEOC and deny all of Mr. Borumand’s allegations.”
Blinded by bigotry and prejudice Merrill management does not see this as “discrimination”! Delusional denial or outright lie, whatever state of their mind may be, one has to remind these shameless “repeat offenders” that if what they have done to me is not “discrimination” what else possibly constitutes discrimination?! Merrill Lynch is desperately trying to keep the story of this ugly, audacious and vicious hate crime away from the media and public. Being gravely damaged by financial losses stemming from its disasterous bets in credit markets Merrill has been begging US Government for help with one hand while fighting it/EEOC with another! It is said beggars can not be choosers but they can be adversaries?!   Respect for the law and interest of US tax payer requires Merrill Lynch to pay its dues to EEOC before it can ask for a government bailout! Merrill Lynch can not and should not be allowed to be the beneficiary of any assistance from US government while it is in flagrant violation of Federal laws!

Legal documents & reports of organizations and news media to follow:    

Text of the US Government/EEOC law suit against Merrill Lynch on behalf of Dr. Majid Borumand, 6/26/2007

Press Release By Dr. Majid Borumand’s attorneys in his private discrimination law suit against Merrill Lynch 8/6/2007 (entails much more details about the nature of the case than provided in EEOC law suit). Yonathan (Yoni) Epelbaum, James (Jim) Gatheral and Kishor Laud are among Merrill’s managers associated with discrimination charge in the law suit!
 

National Iranian American Council article about EEOC VS Merrill Lynch

 A second Iranian employee falls victim to Merrill’s hate and discrimination:

 DealBreaker.com note on Merrill Lynch’s legal troubles for its treatment of Iranians :
“A NASD arbitration panel recently ordered Merrill Lynch to pay Fariborz Todd Zojaji $1.6 million for firing him over the issue of being Persian.

This is the second time in a month ML has been caught with its hand in the cookie jar of Iranian hate. On June 27, the bank was sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for firing Majid Borumand, an analyst with the firm’s global markets and investment banking model development group.

You’ve actually got to hand it to the O’Neals (Merrill’s CEO at the time). Where some banks might say, “You know what? We’ve been getting kind of a reputation for condoning sexual harassment and bigotry, maybe we should cool it on the hate for a bit, you know, just dial it down for the time being,” Merrill said, “No, if anything, let’s take it up a few notches and really call attention to ourselves.”

Arbitration panel’s $1.6 million ruling against Merrill Lynch in case of the law suit filed by another Iranian Mr. Zojaji on 7/20/2007 (a mere 3 weeks after Government/EEOC filed its law suit on behalf of Dr. Borumand)

Lessons learned from EEOC law suit against Merrill Lynch

Discrimination Ruling Another Black Eye for Merrill