Academy Board Endorses Changes to Increase Diversity in Oscar Nominees and Itself
Source: New York Times
LOS ANGELES — Confronting a fierce protest over a second straight year of all-white Oscar acting nominations, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday said it would make radical changes to its voting requirements, recruiting process and governing structure, with an aim toward increasing the diversity of its membership.
The changes were approved at an unusual special meeting of the group’s 51-member governing board Thursday night. The session ended with a unanimous vote to endorse the new processes, but action on possible changes to Oscar balloting was deferred for later consideration. The board said its goal was to double the number of female and minority members by 2020.
“The academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up,” the academy’s president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, said in a statement. Ms. Isaacs referred to an often-repeated complaint that the academy, in its lack of diversity, reflects the demographics of a film industry that for years has been primarily white and male.
The most striking of the changes is a requirement that the voting status of both new and current members be reviewed every 10 years.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/business/media/oscars-diversity-academy-voting-rules.html
By MICHAEL CIEPLY JAN. 22, 2016
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