Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis has been sh*tcanned from the chairman position, but will remain CEO, says the NYT. Calls for Lewis to resign in shame and go cry alone with his money have been getting louder over the past few months.

From the NYT:

“Ken Lewis has now become the lightning rod of controversy, and that is highly distracting,” said Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, who believes Mr. Lewis should resign. “Even if everything he did was appropriate, it has hampered his legitimacy to lead.”

The Merrill Lynch merger and Lewis’ subsequent failure to disclose the risks to shareholders, actions which are the subject of an investigation by the attorney general of New York, have resulted in widespread loss of confidence in the previously popular CEO.

In the end, it was close: 50.34 percent of shareholders – 25 million votes – opted to remove Mr. Lewis as chairman. A third voted to remove him from the board altogether. Even before the vote count was final, the bank’s directors were considering replacing Mr. Lewis as chairman because it was clear he had lost the support of so many shareholders.

Bank of America Chief Ousted as Chairman [NYT]
(Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times)

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