In the latest round of chaotic volleys around the Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy’s short-lived president and CEO, Deborah Dugan — the organization’s first female chief executive — announced Tuesday afternoon that she has filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against the Academy, the organization that gives out the Grammys.
The EEOC complaint includes several bombshell accusations, including that her predecessor, Neil Portnow, raped a female artist in New York; that she was pressed to hire Portnow as a consultant for $750,000 by the Academy’s then-board chair, John Poppo; and that the Academy’s general counsel and former board chair, Joel Katz, sexually harassed Dugan in May 2019, as she was being courted for the top Academy job.
Last Thursday, Dugan was put on administrative leave just ten days before this year’s Grammy Awards telecast, which will take place on Sunday. She was announced as the organization’s leader last May, and took up her post in August.
As recently as last month, Dugan was giving interviews in which she promised “a major restructuring” of the Grammys. The pledged changes included meeting concrete, measurable goals meant to add greater gender and racial diversity to the awards process, and to ensure voting and membership transparency across the awards, and the Academy.
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