#OscarsSoWhite: The Motion Picture Academy Votes To Double Membership Diversity By 2020

For a second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Pictures and Science faced the dilemma of underrepresentation of diversity among its nominees.

The organization also plans to diversify its leadership beyond the board of governors by adding new members to key decision-making committees, and further diversify its membership with a global campaign to identify and recruit diverse talent.

The organisation says that from next year, a new member’s voting status for the annual Academy Awards will last 10 years – but will only be renewed only if that new member has been active in filmmaking during that period.

–Members will receive lifetime voting rights after three 10-year terms, or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award.

Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status.

The Academy has also decided that three new seat will be added to the 51 Board of Governors.

“The academy is going to lead”, she said in a statement, “and not wait for the industry to catch up”.

Boone Isaacs said the new measures will “begin the process of significantly changing our membership composition”. The academy’s goal is to double the number of women and minorities by 2020, though it hasn’t disclosed its current demographic makeup.

Ava DuVernay, director of last year’s Oscar-nominated civil rights drama Selma, tweeted that the changes were “one good step in a long, complicated journey for people of color + women artists”.

In an email sent by Boone Isaacs to the Academy’s membership, she described the changes as “a series of courageous steps”. Boone Isaacs is the only African-American on the board.

“Our members are in a business where people come in and out”, Boone Isaacs said.

The moves were hailed by Kevin Tsujihara, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. and an Academy member himself, who said in a statement, “The changes being made by AMPAS are a great step toward broadening the diversity and inclusivity of the Academy, and, by extension, the industry”.

What the board did not do was change any of its voting processes, such as raising the number of best picture nominees to 10 or eliminating its complex preferential ballot system, which some speculated might have hurt “Straight Outta Compton”, a popular, critically acclaimed film on the hip-hop group N.W.A that failed to secure a best picture nomination. “I commend the Academy for what they’ve done”. Boone Isaacs is expected to name the new board members as soon as early February.

Cheryl Issca Boone emphasized that they will be bringing in more female members and members from other diverse groups to its ranks.

“I’m very encouraged”, April Reign, the former attorney and managing editor of BroadwayBlack.com who created the Twitter hashtag (hashtag)OscarsSoWhite in 2015, said after the academy announced the changes.

“It was her call to action, for herself, and for me and for our family to be a part of the solution, ‘ added the two-time Oscar nominee for his roles in ‘Ali” and ‘The Pursuit of Happyness.’ ‘There is a regressive slide towards separatism, towards racial and religious disharmony and that’s not the Hollywood that I want to leave behind, ‘ he said.

In the late 1960s, then-president Gregory Peck led a purge of older, inactive members in a bid to make the academy younger and more in touch with a changing culture.

“But we still need to put pressure on the Hollywood studio heads to make more inclusive and diverse films, because the academy can only nominate quality work that has been made”. According to a 2012 study by the Los Angeles Times, almost 94 percent of the Academy voters are white and 77 percent male.