A JP Morgan Chase bank employee says he’s not only puzzled by an internal company survey that asked workers if they considered themselves friend of the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community — he’s fearful of losing his job.
The unnamed employee reported to Professor Robert George of Princeton, who runs a law blog, that this year’s company survey — which is distributed to employees annually as a means of gauging work satisfaction — asked respondents to note if they were disabled, had children or spouses and domestic spouses with disabilities and were members of the LGBT community, Breitbart reported.
But the last question was the most controversial. It read, Breitbart reported: “Are you … an ally of the LGBT community, but not personally identifying as LGBT?”
The employee said he feared that answering no could open him up to charges of discrimination that could negatively impact his employment.
The employee told Mr. George in a written statement that he worried about his future with Chase, saying that “this survey wasn’t anonymous,” Breitbart reported.
“You had to enter your employee ID. With the way things are going and the fact that LGBT rights are being viewed as pretty much tantamount to the civil rights movement of the mid ’50s to late ’60s, not selecting that option is essentially saying, ’I’m not an ally of civil rights,’ which is a vague way to say, ’I’m a bigot.’ The worry among many of us is that those who didn’t select that poorly placed, irrelevant option will be placed on the ’you can fire these people first’ list,” he said.
SPECIAL COVERAGE: Banking & Finance
Mr. George posted the statement on his law blog, Mirror of Justice, and shortly after received confirmation from another Chase employee that the survey did in fact include the LGBT query.
This second source, who requested anonymity to protect his job, told Mr. George: “I just wanted to confirm the Chase employee survey. It did have the last two options about being an LGBT ally. I have wired for Chase for [a number of] years and was blown away by this question. I have no idea what they were thinking when they asked that. If this is posted, please spare my identity.”
Breitbart asked Chase for explanation, but was told by a spokeswoman that the company did not “comment on internal surveys.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.