Academy plans ‘historic action’ to make itself more diverse

The number of minorities now serving as members of the academy has not been revealed.

The changes will be applied later this year and will not affect voting for this year’s Oscars, according to the Academy.

Industry stars including Spike Lee, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have said they will boycott the awards.

Despite the excitement surrounding this critical moment during awards season, several people were miffed that the Academy nominated only white actors and actresses in the leading and supporting categories for the second year in a row.

But Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling and Oscar-winning actor Sir Michael Caine have expressed reservations about the campaign.

All of these are substantive changes that will open up our governance to a wider range of members and have a significant and positive impact on the Academy.

USA TODAY speaks to Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and CEO Dawn Hudson about the organizations recent changes to promote diversity.

The roster of the 6,000 or so academy members has never been publicly disclosed, though a 2012 Los Angeles Times study found its members were almost 94 percent white and 77 percent male.

Boone Isaacs has previously promised to review the membership to improve inclusion on the basis of “gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation”. “Even if you fill the Academy with black and Latino and Asian members, if there’s no one on the screen to vote for, you’re not going to get the outcome that you want”. Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status, which allows them to enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting. Rev. Al Sharpton first boycotted the Oscars, but is now taking the Academy’s proposal into consideration.

Hudson said Saturday that the academy population was now 7% people of color “and we’ll be doubling that within the next three to four years”.

Currently, Isaacs is the only African-American on the board of governors which is predominantly white. Only those members who have had three 10-year terms or have won or been nominated for an Oscar will have lifetime voting rights. Ava DuVernay, director of last year’s best picture-nominee “Selma”, tweeted that the changes were “one good step in a long, complicated journey for people of color and women artists”.

“It’s unprecedented for the academy to make this kind of drastic overhaul”, said Tom O’Neil, editor of the awards-tracking website Gold Derby. “It’s a strong first step but that is all that it is, it’s a first step”, he told Us of the Board of Governors’ proposal to double minority membership by 2020.

So the Academy will rectify the issue in the future but presently, there’s nothing that can be done? “The infrastructure is the problem”, said Felix Sanchez, chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts.