-Eldica StEwart-
Cousins!
Wells Fargo is currently “under scrutiny” due to an investigation that is taking place surrounding claims of discrimination amongst African Americans!
The New York Times reports that Wells Fargo is being accused of conducting fake interviews amongst African American applicants and female job applicants.
Confirmed as the nation’s third largest bank in the United States in rank by assets, it has been noted that Wells Fargo staff were told to interview candidates to allegedly display diversity for the company; there were bogus interviews with Black candidates. There were even staff members validating the claims, reporting that they were aware of doing the false interviews for the bank.
Recently, the bank paused its diverse hiring policy this week. The Federal civil rights prosecutors are investigating Wells Fargo hiring practices. This is not the first time the bank has been under inquiry. In 2020, Wells Fargo was asked to pay over three billion dollars to resolve federal claims that employees tried to reach the company’s goals by opening false bank accounts without customer’s consent.
Within the same year, Wells Fargo settled claims with the Department of Labor as they discriminated against African American job applicants. Discrimination is in fact, illegal. Employers are not to discriminate based on people or things including race, sex, or age.
Wells Fargo human resources leader Bei Ling expressed that this issue was not “systemic” . Also, according to a Bloomsberg analyst with Forbes, Wells Fargo has also had a 47% approval rate but stifled Black homeownership by rejecting African Americans refinance applications and approving almost three quarters of Caucasian applicants. This is a considerable difference between the two applicants. It has been alleged that African Americans had a higher interest rate and fees when purchasing homes and taking out loans.