Academy Awards board ousts Weinstein
Vote follows multiple allegations of sexual harassment, assault
LOS ANGELES — Harvey Weinstein — a once-dominant force in the Academy Awards who rewrote the rules of Oscar campaigning — was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Saturday in response to mounting allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him.
The film academy’s 54-member board of governors, which includes such stars as Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kathleen Kennedy and Whoopi Goldberg, voted to remove Weinstein from the organization’s ranks in an unprecedented public rebuke of a prominent industry figure.
In removing Weinstein, the academy said in a statement: “We do so not simply to separate ourselves from someone who does not merit the respect of his colleagues but also to send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over. What’s at issue here is a deeply troubling problem that has no place in our society. The Board continues to work to establish ethical standards of conduct that all Academy members will be expected to exemplify.”
Since reports of Weinstein’s alleged misconduct toward dozens of women surfaced in the New York Times on Oct. 5, the academy had been under increasing pressure to take action against him. On Tuesday, the National Organization for Women called for Weinstein’s removal, stating, “A sexual predator doesn’t deserve the privilege of an academy membership — and all the opportunities to wield outsize power that come with it.”
Twenty-one members of the film academy’s board are women — as is its chief executive, Dawn Hudson — and in recent years the organization has taken steps to increase the number of women in its historically overwhelmingly male ranks.
In the past several days, a number of academy members expressed their feelings privately and publicly that Weinstein had no place in the film industry’s most prestigious organization. CBS Films President Terry Press, who regularly battled Weinstein on the awards trail during her tenure as a marketing executive at DreamWorks, said in a Facebook post that she would quit the academy if he was allowed to remain. “The idea that anyone would give him a second chance or entertain the notion that he can change is beyond absurd,” Press said.
Even Weinstein’s brother, Bob — with whom he ran Miramax Films and then Weinstein Co. — said in an interview published Saturday in the Hollywood Reporter that he felt the academy should expel him.
But within the academy some wrestled with the decision, fearing that it could set a precedent that would require the academy to police its members’ behavior. As many have pointed out in recent days, other Hollywood figures who have come under attack for their treatment of women — including Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski and Mel Gibson — remain members of the academy.
The academy’s action followed the British Academy of Film and Television Arts’ decision earlier in the week to suspend Weinstein’s membership. The Producers Guild of America is to meet Monday to decide whether to take similar action.
During his years at the helm of Miramax and Weinstein Co., Weinstein’s films — including such hits as “Pulp Fiction,” “The English Patient,” “The Artist” and “The King’s Speech” — racked up more than 300 Oscar nominations. He himself took home a best picture statuette in 1999 for producing “Shakespeare in Love.”