Academy Recording Seeks to Close Deborah Dugan Arbitration Hearing to the Public

Ahead of an arbitration hearing with former CEO Deborah Dugan scheduled to begin July 12 in Los Angeles, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science has requested that the procedures be closed to the public, the New York Times reports. In January 2020, Dugan asked the Recording Academy-the organization that produced the Grammys-in an open letter to waive the arbitration clause in his employment contract, which legally obligates him to settle any disputes. fight with his master through confidential arbitration. Dugan’s request was quickly thwarted by February’s proposal to simply replace the confidentiality of the clause provision, with the transparency service. In his response to the open letter from Dugan, former interim CEO Harvey Mason jr. Said at the time:

“The Recording Academy is never hidden and, in fact, welcomes the opportunity to tell its story so that the entire music community and the world can hear the real – and nothing but the real – about what you made by this proud institution in your short tenure as President / CEO… In short, we welcome full public disclosure of your allegations against the Academy as well as numerous claims and defenses to the Academy against you. ”

But in writing arbitrator Sara Adler and Dugan’s lawyers got on time, Academy attorney Anthony J. Oncidi said they were only now willing to make public the consequences of the arbitration – and the reasoning behind them – but no more. Pitchfork reached out to the Recording Academy for comment; a representative for Dugan declined to comment on the record.

The hearing itself stemmed from a complaint filed by Dugan with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in January 2020, after he was placed on administrative leave a week before the 2020 Grammys and five months from having replaced former Recording Academy CEO Neil Portnow. In the EEOC complaint, he detailed an allegedly rotten voting process for the Grammys and accused Recording Academy general counsel Joel Katz of raping him and Portnow of raping a recording artist. Katz denies the allegations of harassment through his lawyer, and Portnow calls it accusation of rape “Ludicrous” and “untrue.” Dugan is officially removed in March 2020. Last year the Academy denied Dugan’s claims that nomination committee members pushed for nominations for artists with whom they were related, and in April Office has partnered that they will end the nomination committees for most of the top awards.

Read “The Explosive Grammys 2020 CEO Scandal, Explained”In Pitch.