WSJ What’s News - Why No One Is Happy About Morgan Stanley’s DEI Efforts

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

P.M. Edition for Mar. 18. In 2020, Morgan Stanley went big on DEI efforts; now, after criticism from employees, it’s watering them down. WSJ reporter AnnaMaria Andriotis tells us what happened. Plus, Russian President Vladimir Putin agrees to a temporary cease-fire in Ukraine on a call with President Trump. WSJ report er Alan Cullison joins to talk about what it means. And Chief Justice John Roberts criticizes Trump for calling to impeach judges ruling against his administration policies. Alex Ossola hosts. Watch: How Taiwan Is Navigating Trump 2.0 Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a call with President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin agrees to a limited ceasefire in Ukraine. Plus, how Morgan Stanley's efforts at inclusivity caused divisiveness instead. What was interesting in all of this reporting was hearing the different type of tensions among white executives, white employees, as well as black employees and executives. We're talking about settlements. We're talking about lawsuits being filed. And why people across the American heartland

are struggling to afford home insurance. It's Tuesday, March 18th. I'm Alex Osceola for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. In a phone call with President Trump today, Russian President Vladimir Putin

agreed to a limited ceasefire in Ukraine. The agreement means that Russia will pause attacks against Ukraine's energy infrastructure for 30 days. The ceasefire is Trump's first tangible win from Russia in his effort to end the war. But a plan for longer lasting peace is far from a sure thing. tangible win from Russia in his effort to end the war. But a plan for longer lasting peace is far from a sure thing.

For more, I'm joined by WSJ reporter Alan Cullison. Alan, what is each side getting out of this? For now, the Kremlin buys some time. There was some danger that by dragging their feet, they might get Trump angry. And up to now, his quest for a peace deal has been hard on Ukraine because he's been demanding concessions from them in various ways. And so the Russians had to give up something and this is what it was.

But is that the extent of the concessions from Russia so far? That looks like the extent of it so far because they in the language indicate that they really haven't abandoned a lot of their basic strategy and their hopes for their initial invasion, which was to take large swaths of Ukrainian territory and control the rest of the country politically. I'm curious what Ukraine makes of this. There will be continued skepticism on the part of Ukraine that Russia is simply buying time because this is only a partial ceasefire after all.

The war will continue and it is broadly to Russia's advantage to be continuing right now. So what does this temporary ceasefire mean for the prospect of something more permanent and potentially even an end to the war? Some more talks are planned in Saudi Arabia where they will try to broaden it and presumably they will have a pretty difficult time there. There are indications that the Trump administration really underestimated the seriousness of the Russian demands and they're going to have to really confront them in the upcoming talks now.

In the nuance of some of the language in the Kremlin readout, you can see some worrisome signs that Russia is still really bent upon a reformation of Ukrainian society, which is going to be very hard to deal with. That was WSJ reporter Alan Cullison. Thank you, Alan. Thank you. That was WSJ reporter Alan Cullison. Thank you, Alan. Thank you. In other international news, in a report outlining its security plans for the next four years, Taiwan's defense ministry said that U.S. support is essential to the security of the island. It's a signal to Washington about Taipei's desire for a stable relationship, as anxieties simmer about whether President Trump would send help to defend against a Chinese attack.

Separately, in an exclusive interview with WSJ reporter Gavin Bade, the Taiwanese representative to the U.S., Alexander Yu, said that making advanced chips in the U.S. could help strengthen the island's security. For manufacturing to be placed where our clients are, the United States mainly, it makes sense also by being part of the supply chain, Taiwan, US and other friendly countries, we're actually better intertwined, better connected, so we can turn this shield into our silicon fortress.

For the whole interview, check out the video on wsj.com. We'll leave a link in our show notes. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong sought to allay investor concerns about the AI boom. At an event he dubbed the Super Bowl of AI today, he said the world would need a hundred times more computing power for advanced AI than it considered necessary a year ago.

Nvidia also announced a more powerful version of its Blackwell AI chips that are due to launch later this year. Blackwell chips have only recently started shipping in high volume. Investors didn't seem to be as optimistic as Wang. Nvidia's stock fell sharply, dropping nearly 3.5%. US indexes were also down. The Dow fell about 0.6%, the S&P 500 dipped a little over 1 percent,

and the Nasdaq dropped about 1.7 percent. And speaking of Nasdaq, the stock exchange operator says that it will open its first regional headquarters in Dallas. Nasdaq has more than 200 listed companies based in Texas, where it has had a physical presence since 2013. It's the latest push by a New York institution into Texas, which is trying to unseat the Northeast as the epicenter of U.S. business. Coming up, why Morgan Stanley is watering down its DEI efforts. That's after the break.

All over the country, corporate diversity initiatives are under pressure from outside forces like legal activists and the Trump administration. But at Morgan Stanley, the backlash came from within. The Investment Bank implemented a number of equity initiatives after George Floyd's murder in 2020. Now, it's facing criticism from its own staff about these initiatives, as well as accusations of discrimination and even lawsuits. WSJ reporter Anna Maria Andriotis has been looking into this and is here to tell us more. So Anna Maria, after 2020 Morgan Stanley did things like create an institute for inclusion and pledged to boost the share of racial minorities and executive ranks. how were these efforts received? The efforts were initially received in a very positive way, in particular by black and other

minority employees at Morgan Stanley. That initial optimism started to change as time went on. So for example, there was one initiative that the company publicized that was focused initially on Black recruits, the first group being hired in 2021. And by early 2022, when bonuses were being distributed, Black employees in this program realized that their bonuses were substantially lower than the bonuses of other associates in similar or identical positions to them who were not in the program that played out the following year in early 2023, at which point the Black recruits from this program really started to voice their concerns even more than they already had been.

That resulted in an internal review and the end outcome of that in the spring of 2023 was that their salaries were increased. Now, as all of this is playing out, there's a lot of tension bubbling up from white employees who are viewing the increased diversity efforts that were rolled out by the bank as what they've described and has been described in one lawsuit filed by a former white executive as reverse discrimination. What has Morgan Stanley said about the tension that employees told you about? The bank disputes that its policies have created divisiveness or tensions. It's pointed to company-wide surveys in which most employees gave the bank high scores on its commitment

to diversity and inclusiveness. The firm has some 80,000 employees around the bank high scores and its commitment to diversity and inclusiveness. The firm has some 80,000 employees around the world, and Morgan Stanley said that there will always be outliers, but the vast majority of its employees of all backgrounds agree that Morgan Stanley is a great place to work. So now we're in a very different political climate than in 2020, right?

What is Morgan Stanley doing in terms of its inclusion initiatives? The bank has been making a number of changes to its diversity initiatives. Also notable this year, Morgan Stanley's annual report says that its talent development is based on meritocracy. This was new language that previously had said a lot about diversity efforts. The addition of talent development being based on, quote, meritocracy was a new one this time around. That was Journal reporter Anna Maria Andriotis.

Thank you, Anna Maria. Thank you. And you can read more about how Morgan Stanley's efforts added to a divisive culture, as both Black and white employees say, on wsj.com. We'll leave a link in the show notes. Chief Justice John Roberts has criticized President Trump and his supporters for calling to impeach judges who have ruled against administration policies. In a statement today, Roberts said that the court system should be left to resolve legal disputes through the traditional system of litigation. The comments come after Trump posted on social media demanding the impeachment of a federal judge who is hearing

a challenge to the removal of alleged Venezuelan gang members under a long-dormant 18th century law. Congress is working on a budget and cuts to Medicaid are on the table. The program is mainly for low-income Americans, but deep cuts could affect state budgets and health care more broadly. What questions do you have? Send a voice memo to wnpod at wsj.com or leave a voicemail with your name and location at 212-416-4328. We might use it on the show.

Over the weekend, an intense storm caused damage across the central and southern U.S. Repairing storm-damaged houses across the American heartland has grown so expensive that insurers are increasing premiums and dropping vulnerable homes to protect profits. Take Oklahoma. A hail storm in Oklahoma City last year was the worst in the country and rained golf ball size hail on 35,000 homes. According to comparison shopping website Insurify, Oklahoma now ranks second after Florida for states with the least affordable home insurance. WSJ reporter Heather Gillers is here to tell us more. Heather,

what is driving up the cost of insurance? Heather Gillers Well, the biggest factor that has driven up insured costs related to convective storms is sprawl. As Americans have moved, as cities have grown, you might think about Denver or like the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, all those cities have expanded and you have all of these homes and schools and businesses in places where previously it was just maybe grass. And so of course, that means that hail can do a lot more damage. So are regulators doing anything about this? Insurance in the US is regulated on a state-by-state basis. States like California are a lot more aggressive on regulation, but particularly in the center

of the country and places like Oklahoma, often state regulators have a really tough dilemma because on one hand, they want to keep insurance affordable for people, and then on the other hand, they want to make sure that insurers don't leave because of course, this is a business and if they are paying more year after year after year for damage than they're getting from premiums, they may not want to be in Oklahoma anymore. And that's a very real concern. That was WSJ reporter Heather Gillers. Thank you, Heather. Thanks for having me. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon.

Today's show is produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bienamé with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. I'm Alex Osila for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.