Ex-Grammys CEO Deborah Dugan Sues Academy for Bias, Rigged Voting and Sexual Harrasment
According to Deborah Dugan Grammys ex-CEO who lost her position 16 January 2020 the academy has secret committees within the organization that rigged votes. Dugan accuses the process for not being transparent enough.
The complaint notes that, “The nomination review committees… the members of which are chosen by Bill Freimuth, the Head of Awards, along with the Board Chair (the members of which are shrouded in secrecy) … play a specific role with respect to the selection of Grammy Awards nominees.”
It claims:
*That some board members on the “secret committees” represent or have relationships with nominated artists; *That the Board uses these committees as an opportunity to push forward artists with whom they have relationships; *That the Board also manipulates the nominations process to ensure that certain songs or albums are nominated when the producer of the Grammys (Ken Ehrlich) wants a particular song performed during the show; *That the Board is permitted to simply add in artists for nominations who did not even make the initial 20-artist list; *That the Board has selected artists who are under consideration for a nomination to sit on the committee that is voting for the category for which that have been nominated. As a result, one artist who initially ranked 18 out of 20 in the 2019 “Song of the Year” category ended up with a nomination — over Ed Sheeran and Ariana Grande.
Lest we never forget Rihanna's 2017 Grammys Snub for ANTi
Her lawsuit also highlights the lack of diversity in the academy noting that between 2015 and 2018, 71% of the national governance committee members were men, while only 29% were female; and between 2015 and 2017, the members of the nomination review committees in the aggregate were 74% male, 26% female. It also notes that “between 2012 and the present, the Board has been approximately 68% male and 69% Caucasian.”
On top of that she's suing the academy and the academy's lawyer for sexual harrassment which is the reason she had been put on "leave".
These are all obviously things that fans allegedly knew but, the confirmation is reassuring for the future of the Recording Academy.