Suspended Grammys CEO Has Now Been Fired

Deborah Dugan was the Recording Academy's first female CEO
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 3, 2020 12:02 PM CST
Suspended Grammys CEO Has Now Been Fired
Recording Academy President/CEO Deborah Dugan participates in the 62nd Grammy Awards nominations press conference at Studio 43 at CBS Broadcast Center on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in New York.   (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

A month and a half after suspending its first female CEO, the Recording Academy has fired her. Deborah Dugan sued after her suspension, alleging that she had been targeted because she complained about a rigged nomination process and sexual harassment, among other problems, at the organization whose members vote for the Grammy Awards. Dugan was suspended just days before this year's ceremony. In its statement regarding her termination Monday, the academy cited unspecified alleged misconduct by Dugan, plus "consistent management deficiencies and failures," Reuters reports. It said the decision to terminate was made "after weighing all of the evidence from two independent investigations."

In her own statement, Dugan says her termination shows that the academy "will stop at nothing to protect and maintain a culture of misogyny, discrimination, sexual harassment, corruption, and conflicts of interest." In an extensive piece titled "All Hell Has Broken Loose Within the Grammys," Vulture runs down the timeline of the scandal and notes that the complaint about Dugan that apparently got her fired was made all the way back in November. Dugan's legal team in January promised to fight back until it proves the Grammys fired her to hide its own "unlawful activity" and as retaliation for her complaint about that activity. "If this is the case, then Dugan’s dismissal could become one of the biggest stories in the music industry since the Me Too era began," writes Eve Barlow at Vulture. (More Recording Academy stories.)

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