The University of New Mexico
11/20/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 11/20/2024 16:33
UNM students take on the Academy Awards
It's the biggest night in Hollywood for movie makers and film actors, recognizing the best of the best in the movie industry. Between the red carpet and the infamous gold statue, the Oscars are watched by millions. Since 1929, the Oscars have separated actor nominees by gender, but 10 students from a University of New Mexico's Constitutional Law class may possibly change that.
What started as a final project in Professor Lawrence Jones' Constitutional Law course in the Fall of 2023, turned into a 99-page formal presentation and proposal submitted to the President and Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in California. The Presentation and Proposal focuses on why the Oscars' nearly century-long tradition of segregating nominees by gender may be legally and socially flawed and should be the subject of further focus via an official Academy Task Force. The Task Force, once authorized and created by the Academy, would publicly analyze, debate, and reach official conclusions on the issue of ongoing gender segregation vs. gender neutrality, and supply specific reasons supporting its conclusions to the public. 10 UNM students in the class, referred to as "UNM 10", found the issues and initiative so relevant that they continued their work on the subject with Professor Jones after the semester ended, ultimately creating the Presentation and Proposal and officially submitting the document to the Academy Awards for review last month on October 8th.
The 10 students, some who have recently graduated, are Darlene Alarid (2025), Amelia Beggio (2025), Peyton Bowes (2026), Isabella Fauria (2023), Devrah Fung (2026), Abigail McCoy (2025), Sophia Noelle-Woodstra (2024), Marijose Ramirez (2023), Almarina Sosa (2025), and Isabella Storms (2025).
The extensive analysis does not expressly conclude whether the Academy should or should not automatically integrate the acting Oscars and create gender-neutral awards, but rather raises a host of multiple significant legal and social issues supporting the official creation of the Academy Task Force to publicly analyze the issue specifically, and to reach detailed and transparent conclusions supporting its ultimate decision for sharing with the moviegoing public. Additionally, it also suggests at least 20 specific questions and issues the Task Force should address. Some of these questions include:
A) If the Academy contends that continuing gender segregation in present times is a necessary method of supporting women, why then does the Academy gender-segregate only actors, while gender-integrating every other competitive category at the Oscars (writers, designers, directors, etc.)?
B) Regarding the argument by some that men and women actors must be segregated at the Academy Awards because they often play "different roles," in film, why does this logic only apply to gender, and not to all other differing factors in actors' roles from film to film, such as age? Actors of different ages may play radically different roles in movies, but still directly compete against each other for acting Oscars so long as they are of the same gender.
C) Does continuance of a gender-specific rather than a gender-neutral Oscar competition discriminate against non-binary actors who personally may not wish to identify with any gender-based category? Does the Academy's present century-old structure essentially invade some actors' privacy rights by indirectly forcing them to publicly align with either a male or female gender to professionally compete for an Academy Award?
D) If there are talented actors who personally have no objection or issue with gender-neutral competition, or who perhaps even encourage and support a healthy competition with all of their professional peers in a gender-neutral competition (such as presently occurs at the Grammys, MTV Awards, American Idol, the Voice, etc.), should the Academy honor those views and give actors the option to do so? Or rather, should the Academy continue to restrict actors to categories that only include competition against actors with similar gender identities, without regard to the personal views or individual preferences of the actors themselves?
E) If statistics show that there is a historical disparity between the financial value of winning a gender-segregated "Best Actor" Oscar and a "Best Actress" Oscar, might the Academy be helping women actors who may want to compete against all actors of all gender identities and non-identities potentially win a gender-neutral award that may be of significantly higher financial value than a gender-segregated "Best Actress" Oscar?
F) Does the gradual social replacement of the term "actress" with "actor" for female acting professionals have any social and cultural relevance in the analysis of whether the Academy should or should not continue ongoing gender segregation at the Academy Awards?
G) Presently, and with limited exceptions (such as athletics), persons of all gender identities and/or non-identities may generally compete with and against each other for political office, Nobel prizes, industry awards, academic awards, etc. Based on social progress, as well as a series of judicial decisions addressing gender segregation (and addressed in the Presentation), has the time culturally arrived for the Academy to give gender neutrality a chance, even on a trial basis, rather than simply speculating as to whether gender integration and neutrality can or cannot work?
H) Is it socially relevant to consider exactly why the Academy founders instituted gender segregation of women actors, before automatically continuing the policy indefinitely into the future? Was the policy designed to help women, or alternatively, as the custom was created at a time when only a few years earlier women did not even have the right to vote, was the Academy's gender segregation policy in 1929 possibly created by studio heads and males of privilege in a manner which discriminated against women? Who in the Academy actually invented the "gender segregation" concept, and why?
The presentation and proposal further develops several original theories, such as the Taylor Swift Principle, the Margot Robbie Principle, and the Billie Jean King/Emma Thompson Principle.
The Taylor Swift Principle studies the success of gender desegregation at the Grammy Awards and stands for the possibility that gender integration of an industry's long-segregated major award competition may work if the industry is first willing to give the concept a reasonable chance to develop and succeed over time. The Grammys gender-integrated more than 10 years ago in 2012, and in 2024 women dominated the show.
The Margot Robbie Principle focuses on the controversial development last year when the Academy did not nominate Margot Robbie for her iconic performance in the movie Barbie. The Presentation points out that had the "Best Actor" awards been integrated and set up like the "Best Picture " award where the 10 top nominees compete based on talent in a gender-neutral manner, Robbie could have theoretically been nominated for 1 of 10 spots. Rather she was shut out because five other actors of the same gender received more votes in a category defined solely by gender in a 5 male, 5 female nominee structure created a century ago. The presentation further addresses the Margot Robbie Principle in detail, analyzing how the Academy's Gender-Segregation policy can sometimes seriously damage the chances of a highly talented and deserving female or male actor to compete for an Oscar by artificially restricting and capping opportunities for nominations based solely on gender rather than acting ability and achievement, irrespective of gender.
Under the Billie Jean King/Emma Stone Principle, the presentation essentially urges female actors such as Emma Thompson, who played the legendary Billie Jean King in the movie Battle of the Sexes, to consider the potential social value of attempting to break gender segregation barriers and enter into the historically segregated "Best Male Actor" category the next time she is nominated for an Oscar. Thompson has already won two "Best Actress" Oscars in gender-segregated competitions. The Billie Jean King/Emma Stone Principle points out that some actors are uniquely unified to create future historic social change for Women's Equality in the Film Industry, through the Oscar Competition itself. Billie Jean King was a female tennis champion and cultural trailblazer for women's rights and equality, who in 1973 became a social icon by not only competing against male tennis player Bobby Riggs in a gender-integrated, male vs female tennis match, but dominating and defeating him in straight sets before one of the largest worldwide television audiences in history.
For those who worry gender integration would mean fewer opportunities to win an Oscar, the proposal highlights the idea of creating more categories based on talent rather than non-acting criteria like gender.
"Some students advanced concepts for creating additional new gender-neutral Oscar categories such as best comedy, best drama, best musical, best new actor, etc. The point was that the Academy can, if they so choose, create many new, gender-neutral categories that arguably might be more consistent with public policy in 2024," Jones said.
Jones said that in a world that encourages equality, many contend that award shows like the Oscars should not be segregated based on gender, citing several Supreme Court Cases and other cases that frowned upon the concept of gender segregation in other contexts. One of several precedential cases referenced in the Presentation is U.S. v. Virginia, a 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision authored by legendary Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which found that Virginia's development of an Academy for women students only as a comparable program to an existing Academy for male students only, was violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution because separation of students by gender categories was not equal to women under the circumstances.
Over the past year, Marijosa Ramirez, Debra Fung, and Peyton Bowes, three of the 10 UNM students involved, spent time helping review and refine the lengthy proposal. While they enjoyed the project, especially working alongside other strong female classmates, they all agreed it was harder than it looked to put together 10 people's thoughts into 99 pages.
"Coming to terms with the fact that while there are different points of view, substantially you can tell there is an overall message, and I think just coming to that message was maybe the hardest part," Ramirez said.
No matter what, these students, some now graduated, hope the proposal will at least help initiate a task force and bring awareness on the topic to those in charge of the Academy Awards.
"More than anything I want is for them to acknowledge that this is a conversation that needs to be had," Ramirez said. "Moving forward if we want to make these changes, accountability and transparency is something we need to be thinking about."
"I hope they not only recognize the work and the effort we put into it, but also it would be beneficial for everyone involved, that this is a conversation they should undertake," Bowes added.
"I hope this conversation as a whole is a push for more conversations in other aspects, not just the Oscars. I hope the Academy Awards recognizes this and consider it," Fung said.
The students are currently awaiting a response from the Academy Awards, anticipating the Academy will reply shortly.
Professor Jones concluded, "Regardless of the outcome, UNM 10 helped bring forward significant legal and social issues of cultural substance. Additionally, they demonstrated the concept of public advocacy and working together as a team," Jones said. "These 10 students put their heart and energy into this and did a really nice job. They each have a fantastic amount of potential as they pursue their future professional paths. As for this Presentation and Proposal, I'm hopeful Academy leadership will give the submission the thorough and detailed consideration it certainly deserves."
The 97th Oscars will premiere on Sunday, March 2, 2025, where Conan O'Brien will host on ABC.