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Reprinted from The Hollywood Reporter by Scott Feinberg on May 26, 2021.
After several years of inviting massive classes of new members to join their organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is warning people to expect a much smaller class of new members this year and going forward.
“As we look to the future growth and goals of the Academy, we need to scale appropriately so we can continue to give the personal service our members have come to expect and appreciate,” Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in a statement. “We remain focused on cultivating a membership body that reflects our diverse film community and the world around us.”
In the five years since the #OscarsSoWhite crisis exploded — following the second of two consecutive Oscar nominations announcements without a Black acting nominee — and led the Academy to expedite its inclusion efforts under the A2020 initiative that had been in the works even before that, the Academy has markedly increased the number of invitations it issued each year. Indeed, after inviting just 322 new members in 2015, it invited 683 in 2016, 774 in 2017, a record 928 in 2018, 842 in 2019 and 819 in 2020. …
