Just before the US Grammy Awards, its organiser the Recording Academy placed its president and CEO Deborah Dugan on administrative leave. Now it has taken the next step and terminated her employment altogether.
The industry body will begin its search for a replacement president and CEO “in the coming days”. Is this an end to the controversy surrounding the messy end to Dugan’s five-month stint as boss of the Recording Academy? No, it most surely is not.
“The Academy’s decision to terminate Ms. Dugan and immediately leak that information to the press further demonstrates that it will stop at nothing to protect and maintain a culture of misogyny, discrimination, sexual harassment, corruption and conflicts of interest,” said one of her attorneys, Doug Wigdor, in a statement to Variety. “The decision is despicable and, in due course, the Academy, its leadership and its attorneys will be held accountable under the law.” Dugan herself promised to “continue to work to hold accountable those who continue to self-deal, taint the Grammy voting process and discriminate against women and people of colour”.
Meanwhile, the Academy disputed Wigdor’s claim. “Again, these allegations are false, as proven out by independent investigation which found them to be exactly that. Making the allegations again does not make them true.” The legal battle will continue.
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