The NAACP and the Money Management Institute have announced a new program that is designed to place outstanding African American students in intern positions at some of the top financial services companies in the United States beginning this summer. The program, called "Gateway to Leadership," will officially begin on June 4, 2007 with the goal of preparing Black students for leadership roles in the financial services industry, which traditionally has had abysmally low diversity numbers, particularly among African Americans.

In 2005, the Securities Industry Association released a report on Diversity, Strategy, Development and Demographics in the financial services industry that showed that only 2 percent of the retail brokers and 3 percent of the sales force in securities firms are African American. Even more disappointing is the fact that only three African Americans hold top positions in Fortune 100 companies today.

Dennis C. Hayes, the NAACP Interim President and Chief Executive Officer, understands the value of diversity in this industry. "Without a diverse employee pool that includes minority executives and managers, and absent sincere outreach efforts and adoption of best practices that cut across racial lines in the new global environment, corporations will never be as profitable as they may hope," said Hayes.

One of the things that I particularly like about what I have read about this new program is the fact that the Money Management Institute developed and supports a networking infrastructure that allows the Black student interns to communicate among themselves throughout their careers. The program provides social networking services to improve the communication and collaboration of students, their summer co-workers and mentors, and the companies supporting the program so they can stay connected throughout their careers.

I often write about the fact that all minorities tend to fall behind white individuals (especially in areas like finance and marketing) because they don’t have adequate access to the social networks that allow them to make the contacts that will help them progress in their careers. This new program seems to provide access to these networks, which can only help Black interns progress into leadership positions in the financial services industry. With such a good foundation, this program can grow into a strong and prestigious organization with alumni mentoring new interns and helping them connect with the right people for the better financial services positions.

Wall Street firms have long been plagued by lawsuits arising from discrimination. In the last ten years alone, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Smith Barney, and other Wall Street investment houses were slammed with multimillion dollar class action discrimination lawsuits arising from both Black associates who claimed that they were systemically limited opportunities to advance, and from women who alleged that they were continuously sexually harassed.

Morgan Stanley paid $54 million to settle discrimination suits brought against it, and Merrill Lynch, though it has settled the majority of its discrimination suits, has been sued again by newer employees, for the same despicable reasons.

I am not sure if the Wall Street firms are implementing this new program as a show of good faith that they really are in favor of diversity in their workplaces or if they are just responding to being sued so many times over the last ten years. But one thing is certain— over the next decade, there should be a dramatic and visible increase in the number of Black associates at Wall Street firms.

I hope that the increase in diversity on Wall Street will also lead to better behavior among investment house employees and a decrease in discrimination.