The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

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  • #16
    Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

    Originally posted by odocoileus View Post
    but those people were from an older generation which is dying out now. Younger people are much more sophisticated, and discrimination is almost impossible to prove unless you can catch somebody posting Klan literature on the bulletin board. (Which does happen in middle America, but not in Hollywood, for obvious reasons. )
    Not really true. When you apply to companies for work, they collect the DATA of the race of their applicats, so they can say they have an open recruitment process.

    I was talking about the process of getting read. This information is taken from the EEOC website.

    http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/race-color.html#VIA
    A. RECRUITING

    Who ultimately receives employment opportunities is highly dependent on how and where the employer looks for candidates. Accordingly, Title VII forbids not only recruitment practices that purposefully discriminate on the basis of race but also practices that disproportionately limit employment opportunities based on race and are not related to job requirements or business needs.(80) For example, recruiting from racially segregated sources, such as certain neighborhoods, schools, religious institutions, and social networks, leads to hiring that simply replicates societal patterns of racial segregation.
    1. Job Advertisements and Employment Agencies

    Title VII specifically forbids job advertisements based on race, color, and other protected traits.(81) The statute also prohibits discrimination by employment agencies.(82) If an employer asks an employee-referral agency or search firm not to refer or search for candidates of a particular race, both the employer that made the request and the employment agency that honored it would be liable.(83)
    2. Word-of-Mouth Referrals

    While word-of-mouth recruiting in a racially diverse workforce can be an effective way to promote diversity, the same method of recruiting in a non-diverse workforce is a barrier to equal employment opportunity if it does not create applicant pools that reflect the diversity in the qualified labor market.(84) Similarly, unions that are not racially diverse should avoid relying solely on member referrals as the source of new members.(85)
    3. Homogeneous Recruitment Sources

    Title VII is violated by recruiting persons only from largely homogeneous sources if the recruitment practice has a racial purpose, or if it has a significant racial impact and cannot be justified as job related and consistent with business necessity. For example, Title VII might be violated if a municipal employer with an overwhelmingly White population and workforce abuts a major city with an overwhelmingly Black population, but the municipality only hires its own residents and refuses to advertise its jobs in newspapers that circulate in the abutting major city.(86) As another example, Title VII might be violated if a statistically significant racial disparity results from recruiting persons exclusively from predominantly White schools, or exclusively from predominantly Black schools, when it would be feasible to recruit qualified students from a range of sources. More investigation would be needed to determine whether a racial motivation exists, or whether the employer’s recruitment practices can be justified as job related and consistent with business necessity.
    4. Discriminatory Screening of Recruits

    The process of screening or culling recruits presents another opportunity for discrimination. Race obviously cannot be used as a screening criterion. Nor may employers use a screening criterion that has a significantly disparate racial impact unless it is proven to be job related and consistent with business necessity.



    So since the EEOC says that, I gather that requirement screenwriters to get industry referrals means that you substantially exclude people on the basis of the protected EEOC categories.

    For all intents and purposes, a talent agency is a specialized employment agency, and they are still bound by the EEOC laws.

    The issue here is not what you guys think is good, or right or wrong. The issue is whether requiring industry referrals is ILLEGAL under those ABOVE guidelines, taken from the EEOC website's office.

    As for them simply taken my complaint, well, let's just say I personally have known people who found justice by complaining to administrative federal agencies. It happens more often than some of you know.
    Check out my videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/NyFilmmaker32/videos

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    • #17
      Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

      Unfortunately, the insane requirement that the big agencies have towards people getting industry referral totally disproprotionately blocks out people across all categories, and is illegal.
      On second glance, it does look like this is about getting read. I suspect the courts are less interested in who gets read as opposed to who gets repped. When it comes to who gets repped, talent agencies are largely exempt from disparate impact requirements. They can represent whom they like, as long as they aren't explicitly discriminatory. Plus all the big agencies have substantial numbers of black actors and musicians on their talent rosters. Asians and Latinos, not so much.
      If you really like it you can have the rights
      It could make a million for you overnight

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      • #18
        Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

        Originally posted by odocoileus View Post
        On second glance, it does look like this is about getting read. I suspect the courts are less interested in who gets read as opposed to who gets repped. When it comes to who gets repped, talent agencies are largely exempt from disparate impact requirements. They can represent whom they like, as long as they aren't explicitly discriminatory. Plus all the big agencies have substantial numbers of black actors and musicians on their talent rosters. Asians and Latinos, not so much.
        Oh, no doubt there are major black actors out there. But as for the screenwriters?

        And if the agencies are not repping Asians and Latinos so much, for whatever reason, then that is DISCRIMINATORY towards Asians and Latinos. A lot of actors in those categories have felt that they were locked out of roles in the past, because of what they are.

        And yes, this is about getting read, not about getting repped. Of course, an agency can decide that they don't like ones work. However, a number of people will not get the chance, because of the no unsolicted communications. For a read, you largely need an industry referral, and yes, that is discriminatory and it favors the children of Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. Because of their birth, these people are going to be FAVORED over others interms of getting READ (easy to get daddy to refer you). And everyone here knows very well that is basically locks out people on protected categories, ESPECIALLY if you were Asian or Latino.

        And by the way, I'm sure you can find ONE or TWO working Asian or Latino screenwriters. However, the issue is on whether these practices cause certain groups of people to end up not even getting repped as screenwriters, all because of what they were born as.
        Check out my videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/NyFilmmaker32/videos

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        • #19
          Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

          Nor may employers use a screening criterion that has a significantly disparate racial impact unless it is proven to be job related and consistent with business necessity.
          An agency's process for evaluating talent is precisely both job related and business necessity. So the agencies would be exempt from the disparate impact requirement.

          This issue has come up before regarding on camera talent, and the agencies have an exemption in that area. They can specify, as they have to for business reasons, that they want blondes under 25, middle aged Asian men, cute black kids, whatever their requirements.

          As was pointed out up thread, the agency is the employee of the writer, for legal purposes, so the law works differently in this case.
          If you really like it you can have the rights
          It could make a million for you overnight

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          • #20
            Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

            In both cases where I landed a manager, they read the script, then took me on. They didn't hear me speak until after they decided to rep me.

            They had no idea what my ethnic background was.

            If you write a solid script that makes people think they will make money off of you, you could be pink and green and writing from a jail cell or in a cave in Kabul. They will still take you on.

            It's about the script. I'd work more on my writing and less on lawsuits if I were you.

            Look within.

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            • #21
              Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

              Originally posted by seh View Post
              In both cases where I landed a manager, they read the script, then took me on. They didn't hear me speak until after they decided to rep me.

              They had no idea what my ethnic background was.

              .
              What happened between you and the management firm is IRRELEVANT. Most of them have under 15 employees and rep under 15 screenwriters, so they are not even bound by the EEOC laws and can legally do whatever they want to as far as recruitment goes.

              I'm arguing for the right of people to be able to apply to the TOP reps in the industry. I'm arguing that, say for example, an Asian or Latino who is the child of immigrants is much less likely, if it all, to be able to deal with CAA or WMA simply because of the families they were born to (not the Spielbergs or the Coppolas). And that is WRONG and even ILLEGAL.
              Check out my videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/NyFilmmaker32/videos

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              • #22
                Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                Originally posted by odocoileus View Post
                An agency's process for evaluating talent is precisely both job related and business necessity. So the agencies would be exempt from the disparate impact requirement.

                This issue has come up before regarding on camera talent, and the agencies have an exemption in that area. They can specify, as they have to for business reasons, that they want blondes under 25, middle aged Asian men, cute black kids, whatever their requirements.

                As was pointed out up thread, the agency is the employee of the writer, for legal purposes, so the law works differently in this case.
                This issue has come up before, and in regards to film's the EEOC's current stance is that unless you truly need a person of a certain race for a certain role (a black man can't play Hitler, a Jewish person can't play Malcolm X), is that you cannot use race in determining who plays what part.

                Because if the industry had been allowed to totally run with the we can use race in casting, they could have continued to argue that no one wants to see blacks in roles beyond maids or thugs. They once argued it was business necessity to basically not use blacks for anything important. They moved away from that, and it was also because the industry was called out on it's behavior in that regard.

                Not just because of cultural changes, but because of these issues as well, you can know find a black person in a movie that takes place in Medieval England or Vanessa Williams can play Calypso, a Greek Goddess.

                The agency procures employment for the writer, actor, whoever, so along those lines, they are still bound by the EEOC.
                Check out my videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/NyFilmmaker32/videos

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                • #23
                  Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                  I'm arguing for the right of people to be able to apply to the TOP reps in the industry.

                  And by the way, have your managers gotten you any major deals? Because most of the major deals are closed by the big three. If your managers haven't gotten you a huge deal, you've actually supported my argument, that by and large the industry is CLOSED to outsiders.
                  This has nothing to do with the EEOC then.

                  I don't expect to polish up my next draft and have someone at the big three read it just because I want to submit it. Are they supposed to hire a thousand people to read a hundred thousand scripts just so you can have your shot?

                  I have no right to be read. I have a right to write.

                  Agency readers cost money, I have no right to force that cost upon them along with thousands of other unsolicited scripts.

                  Furthermore, in most circumstances, agents and managers are independent contractors with a client-customer relationship. Very rarely is there an employer-employee relationship.

                  I don't know if this thread is sad or just funny in a bad way...I'll call it sadly funny. I think I shall exercise my right to not post on it anymore.


                  R.O.T.

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                  • #24
                    Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                    Originally posted by NYNEX View Post

                    I'm arguing for the right of people to be able to apply to the TOP reps in the industry. I'm arguing that, say for example, an Asian or Latino who is the child of immigrants is much less likely, if it all, to be able to deal with CAA or WMA simply because of the families they were born to (not the Spielbergs or the Coppolas). And that is WRONG and even ILLEGAL.
                    This is totally absurd.

                    You're not being "hired" by the agency! ALL of them have a "we don't read unsolicited submissions" policy and it applies to EVERYBODY....unless your logline is good enough for a particular agent to sneak your script through the gates for a read.

                    And besides, the only color these guys and gals care about is GREEN!

                    If any dust is kicked up over your idiotic complaint I wouldn't be surprised to see the bigger agencies COMPLETELY stop reading unsolicited scripts under any circumstances.

                    Nice work, NYNEX!
                    "I hate to break it to you but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.- - Don Draper

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                    • #25
                      Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                      Originally posted by NYNEX View Post
                      What happened between you and the management firm is IRRELEVANT. Most of them have under 15 employees and rep under 15 screenwriters, so they are not even bound by the EEOC laws and can legally do whatever they want to as far as recruitment goes.

                      I'm arguing for the right of people to be able to apply to the TOP reps in the industry. I'm arguing that, say for example, an Asian or Latino who is the child of immigrants is much less likely, if it all, to be able to deal with CAA or WMA simply because of the families they were born to (not the Spielbergs or the Coppolas). And that is WRONG and even ILLEGAL.
                      I'm now at the point where I realize even working on a better script will not help you.

                      You just want a hand out. You want to blame others for your lack of success, despite the fact the best way in is to equery a log, and in such a situation, ethnic background is invisible. You have large logic holes here - I can't imagine your scripts would be any less flawed.

                      But good luck to you.

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                      • #26
                        Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                        The agency procures employment for the writer, actor, whoever, so along those lines, they are still bound by the EEOC.
                        Not in the same way as employers are. Agencies have a large leeway to decide whom they take on as clients, just as law firms do. I've never heard of a disparate impact case made with regard to choice of clients.

                        An agency could get dinged if it was explicitly discriminatory, but that's clearly not the case. The major agencies all rep a few black feature writers, TV writers, and showrunners.

                        The agencies may also be able to use the various fellowships and diversity programs in their defense. If the agencies can show that they specifically read all the minorities from Disney, WB, CBS, Fox, NBC ( and I believe they do), then they're in the clear for sure.
                        If you really like it you can have the rights
                        It could make a million for you overnight

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                          No, I don't want a hand out, Seh. I want to be read with the same easy that a child of Spielberg can be read with.

                          That's what I want. And there's no way in hell you can tell me that an equery is the best way to get read. It isn't, and officially the big agencies do not even deal with equeries.

                          And there has already been noise made up by this behind the scenes, Joe. I've written several Congressman on the matter, and they've responded to me via mail and by telephone that the matter is being looked into.

                          So again, the issue is not what the agencies or the industry says, it's what the LAW and the US government say!
                          Check out my videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/NyFilmmaker32/videos

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                          • #28
                            Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                            I can't believe I just wasted 3 minutes reading this thread. I will never get those 3 minutes back.

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                            • #29
                              Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                              My advice is to quite writing and take up this cause full time.

                              Good luck.

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                              • #30
                                Re: The big talent agencies violate the civil rights laws

                                But agencies aren't employers of writers...maybe you need to take up your beef with people that hire and pay writers like studios and production companies. Agencies don't pay you...you pay them...They work for you...You're their boss...and since your screenplay employs hundreds of people when its produced, the responsibility is on you to make sure that all minority producers and executives are given the chance to read your script or the EEOC can come down on your ass for discrimination.
                                Last edited by Gillyflower Cooms; 02-22-2009, 02:54 PM.

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