Oscar rules will change to encourage more diversity
Academy aims to double the number of women and diverse members by 2020
In a unanimous vote Thursday night, the Academy Awards’ board of governors approved a sweeping series of changes designed to diversify its membership, the group said in a statement Friday.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 51-member board committed to doubling the number of women and diverse members of the academy by 2020.
It also approved a series of changes limiting lifetime membership.
“Beginning later this year, each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade,” the academy statement said.
“In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three 10year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award. We will apply these same standards retroactively to current members.
“In other words, if a current member has not been active in the last 10 years they can still qualify by meeting the other criteria. Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status. Emeritus members do not pay dues but enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting. This will not affect voting for this year’s Oscars.”
The swift and drastic change comes in response to a protest over an allwhite slate of acting nominees for the second year in a row.
The move follows pledges by director Spike Lee and actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith to stay home from the Oscar telecast on Feb. 28, and calls for a boycott of the show online.
For the past three years, the awards body has been in the midst of a push for more diversity, inviting larger and demographically broader groups to join its 6,261 voting members. But given the size of the academy, and the fact that members belong for life, any change to the organization’s overall demographics had been incremental.
The Academy will also launch a campaign to identify and recruit new members who represent greater diversity, the statement said, and will add new members who are not governors to its executive and board committees to influence key decisions about membership.
Hollywood reaction came swiftly to the move to institute a series of re- forms aimed at increasing diversity.
Ava DuVernay, director of last year’s best picture-nominee Selma, tweeted that “Shame is a helluva motivator.”
“Marginalized artists have advocated for Academy change for DECADES,” DuVernay wrote. “Actual campaigns. Calls voiced FROM THE STAGE. Deaf ears. Closed minds.” And director Rick Famuyiwa, whose films include The Wood, Brown Sugar and last year’s Dope commented: “The devil is in the details.”