Recently suspended Recording Academy president and CEO Deborah Dugan, who was the first woman to hold the title, says the voting system for the Grammys is "rigged."
In charge of discrimination documents filed with the Los Angeles district office for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Dugan alleged exactly how the Grammys voting process is "ripe [sic] with corruption" and said the system is an example of why she made the previously reported comments on the Academy having a "boys' club" mentality.
A transparent nomination process, she said, is not promoted. Instead, submissions for awards are said to begin with a vote from voting members, after which top 20 selections are looked over by "secret committees" whose members are selected by Head of Awards Bill Freimuth and the Board Chair. These committees, Dugan said, contain members "who represent or have relationships with" potentially nominated artists.
While these committees are meant to dwindle down the lists of 20 to the final nominees, the Board is alleged to use the committees to promote artists who have relationships with them. Furthermore, certain songs and albums have allegedly been nominated solely because Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich wanted to hear a specific song performed on the show.
And that's far from all that's alleged regarding the voting process:
[O]ne artist who initially ranked 18 out of 20 in the 2019 Song of the Year category ended up with a nomination. This artist was actually permitted to sit on the Song of the Year nomination committee. Incredibly, this artist is also represented by a member of the Board. As a result of the foregoing, it is not surprising that many high caliber artists who could have taken home the award in a specific category have, at times, not been nominated at all. For instance, Ed Sheeran and Ariana Grande, who had been voted for by the membership, missed out on nominations in the 2019 Song of the Year category in part because the aforementioned artist who ranked 18 out of 20 was nominated instead.
Speaking with Good Morning America this week about her sexual harassment and gender discrimination lawsuit, Dugan said she has "evidence" backing all this up. She also called for a more transparent voting process, as the current method produces tainted results.
"There are conflicts of interest that go on . . . I have evidence [of] that in another room because there were complaints made in the jazz category," she said when asked about the example she gave in the charge of discrimination documents about the alleged Song of the Year incident.
