Second City agrees to institutional changes

In an open letter on its website and Facebook page, The Second City on Thursday agreed to recent demands made by a group of former employees and alumni over the need for the Chicago institution to completely overhaul itself following outcry over allegations of company-wide racism, abuse, discrimination, sexual misconduct, harassment, verbal abuse, pay inequity and other unacceptable treatment of artists of color.

The letter, signed by Second City’s vice chairman/board member D’Arcy Stuart and vice president/managing partner Steve Johnston, read, in part: “We hear you, and we apologize for the extraordinary pain, trauma, and erasure that you have experienced . . . . The steps taken to make Second City a purposefully anti-racist institution will reach into every corner of the company and touch every aspect of its operations.”

The response came in the wake of an open letter on Monday, in which 19 current and former employees and alumni including Chris Redd, Amber Ruffin and Sam Richardson said they would no longer tolerate “the erasure, racial discrimination, manipulation, pay inequity, tokenism, monetization of black culture and trauma-inducing experiences of black artists at The Second City.”

Among the list of changes put forth by Second City are the immediate creation of a steering committee including Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), Latino and LGBTQ reps from the current student body to undertake the search for a full-time, permanent executive producer; hiring an outside BIPOC-owned Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Firm to train staff and faculty and develop a public-facing code of conduct; and a commitment to “an open process” through which the contributions of BIPOC artists will be recorded and proper accreditation given.