AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND THE OSCARS

It's a bemusing spectacle. No one complains about the coloration of awardees in the Black Entertainment Network in their annual events.

No one complains about the coloration of awardees in the Black Entertainment Network in their annual events.

But as my colleague David Sims noted earlier this week, “The Oscars are a more than 6,000-member organization, and even after admitting a larger, diverse group of new members last year, its voters remain 93 percent white and 76 percent male.”

To enact the changes, the Academy will now require an evaluation of the voting status of its members once a decade, which may allow a purging of inactive industry members from the voting ranks. But don’t expect Old Hollywood to skulk away down Wilshire Boulevard without a fight. After all, Academy membership is for life.

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. In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year 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.

At the same time, the Academy will supplement the traditional process in which current members sponsor new members by launching an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity.

Native American advocates say Leonardo DiCaprio‘s film is a watershed for minorities in film, but is ignored amid the Hollywood diversity debate