Deborah Dugan
Deborah Dugan’s Arbitration Could Be Delayed If Recording Academy Successfully Opposes Open Hearing
“We acknowledge your request for ‘transparency and accountability’ as set forth in your January 29, 2020 letter to the Executive Committee, and we wholeheartedly agree with your proposal to have the dispute between you and the Academy heard publicly — so that the ‘public and the music industry’ can hear what happened between you and the Academy,” wrote Mason to Dugan. “In short, we welcome a full public airing of your allegations against the Academy as well as the Academy’s many claims and defenses against you,” Mason was named the official president/CEO of the academy on May 13, following a protracted search. Now, the academy’s attorney, Anthony Oncidi of Proskauer Rose, has written the arbitrator, Sara Adler, asking that the hearing be private, according to the New York Times,...
Recording Academy Paid $4.5M in Legal Fees in 2019, Filings Show
Dugan’s short-lived tenure as Portnow’s successor began Aug.1, 2019, and her salary — as well as any changes in expenditures that occurred under her short-lived tenure — are not indicated in this filing. Five days after being put on administrative leave on Jan. 16, 2020 — just 10 days before the 62nd Grammy Awards — and eventually terminated, Dugan filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). According to Dugan’s EEOC complaint, she learned in May 2019 that “[Joel] Katz and his law firm [Greenberg Traurig] are paid an exorbitant amount of money by the Academy.” She accused the academy of being “boys’ club network” — a place “where men work together to the disadvantage of women and disen...
