ACLU Wants Federal Probe Into Hollywood Gender Bias

Citing Hollywood’s “systemic failure” to hire female directors, the ACLU has called for the EEOC to open an investigation in gender bias in Tinsel Town. In a letter, the civil rights group wrote, “Women directors are subjected to discriminatory practices, including recruiting practices that exclude them, failure to hire qualified women directors based on overt sex stereotyping and implicit bias and the use of screening mechanisms that have the effect of shutting women out.” The percentage of women directors among the 250 top-grossing films of the year is lower today than it was two decades ago. And things are no better on the small screen: a Directors Guild of America 2014 diversity report found that, among 220 television shows, just 14 percent of directors were women.