A former junk-bond saleswoman at Wall Street’s Cantor Fitzgerald claims that her coworkers routinely sexually harassed her, and that she once found her Bernie Sanders mug filled with feces. Now, Bloomberg News reports, her lawsuit might escape the confines of forced arbitration and expose the hallowed firm’s alleged culture of harassment. Lee Stowell filed her lawsuit in April 2018, accusing her boss, a coworker, and the company of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. She claims that her boss stole her clients, and kept a whiteboard where coworkers derided her and tallied “Lee Haters” and “Lee-Free Days.”
The company reportedly tried to move her suit to mandatory arbitration, a common practice on Wall Street, which would force her to settle her claims privately without a judge or jury—preventing the firm from bearing the social or financial cost of the suit. But a judge recently rejected Cantor’s claim that the case should move to arbitration, noting that employees must be explicitly told when they’re signing away their right to sue. The company denies Stowell’s allegations and is appealing—but Stowell is overjoyed. This is where every woman gets stopped,” she told Bloomberg. “We’re now on the starting block. I get to run.”
Read it at Bloomberg News