Wicked discrimination? Broadway smash's apprenticeship excludes white males, federal complaint says

The fourth-longest running Broadway show in history, with about 8,400 performances, an estimated $5 billion in global ticket sales and the most lucrative film adaptation from Broadway yet, may earn a more dubious distinction: race and sex discrimination.

Maestra Music and the New York State Council of the Arts, which respectively operated and funded a three-week paid apprenticeship for Broadway smash Wicked, got hit with a federal civil rights complaint for allegedly excluding male and white applicants, violating Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by way of accepting federal money.

The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism filed the complaint this month with the National Endowment for the Arts' Office for Civil Rights as an "interested third party," though the specific incident concerns one of its FAIR in the Arts members.

Music director Kevin Lynch unsuccessfully applied for membership in Maestra and Musicians United for Social Equity to be eligible for the 2023 "intensive shadowing engagement" with Wicked, according to the complaint.

The membership requirements for Maestra and MUSE, copied in the complaint but substantially the same on their live web pages, suggest they are limited to "female and non-binary" music directors and people of color who are musicians respectively, none of which applies to the white male Lynch. 

The pages appear to have been written from the same template or created at the same time, using similar and even identical phrasing such as "And yes, students studying to do these things professionally are also welcome" and for instructions on creating a profile page and logging in.

FAIR filed the complaint June 5, the same day the Supreme Court unanimously reinstated a heterosexual woman's reverse-discrimination lawsuit that an appeals court had tossed for her failure to show "background circumstances," required of majority-group plaintiffs, to show their employer is "unusual" by discriminating against the majority. 

SCOTUS tossed the background-circumstances requirement. "This ruling reinforces that excluding individuals, such as Mr. Lynch, from opportunities based on race or sex violates federal anti-discrimination protections," FAIR's complaint says.

'Growing climate of fear, censorship, and ideological conformity' in the arts

Because the apprenticeship was "made possible" by NEA grants to NYSCA, which gave Maestra 5% of its funding in 2023, the latter was "an indirect recipient of federal funds," FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris told NEA civil rights Director Darrell Bogan.

That makes NYSCA responsible for ensuring Maestra "complied with federal anti-discrimination laws" and makes Maestra a state actor subject to Title VI, Harris said.  NEA gave more than $106 million to New York in the past five years, including through NYSCA.

While Maestra likely has fewer than 15 employees – exempting it from Title VII – it claimed to have 11 on its 2023 IRS 990 form, nine on its annual report that year and six when it responded to Lynch's first regulatory complaint in 2023, with the New York Division of Human Rights, which "may warrant investigation for compliance with other labor laws," she said.

Maestra, MUSE, NYSCA, Wicked PR firm Polk & Co. and NEA's Bogan did not respond to Just the News queries. FAIR did not answer whether it had heard back from NEA.

"Federal funding should never be used to divide Americans by race or gender," FAIR said in its announcement. "We cannot allow a two-tiered system to take root in our institutions, least of all in the arts, where inclusivity and expression should be celebrated."

The four-year-old equal opportunity advocacy group, best known for funding litigation against racial ideology in medicine and higher education and advocating for sex-based rights over gender ideology, also has a project called Freedom in the Arts.

It recently released a report on "a growing climate of fear, censorship, and ideological conformity in UK arts institutions" based on nearly 500 interviews, revealing that "politically sensitive topics – such as gender identity, Israel-Palestine, and race –have become virtually off-limits, undermining the open debate and creative risk-taking that define the arts."

Lynch "promptly" applied to both Maestra and MUSE when he saw the Wicked opportunity, but was informed by the former, five days before the apprenticeship deadline, that his application was denied.

"Common reasons include: 1) Your pending profile remained incomplete for too long, or b) [sic] Your application did not indicate that your profile belongs in the Maestra community," the July 5, 2023 email says. That can only mean he was rejected for not being female or nonbinary, FAIR's complaint says.

While MUSE has yet to deny Lynch membership, he applied June 28, 2023 and "his profile remains unaccepted and unpublished," which "amounts to a de facto denial."

FAIR asked NEA to force Maestra and NYSCA to revise its policies to "eliminate restrictions based on gender, race, or other protected characteristics" and give Lynch "and other similarly excluded individuals" eligibility for future opportunities or "comparable paid apprenticeships" without requisite membership in discriminatory groups.

It should require NYSCA to impose oversight mechanisms to ensure nondiscriminatory behavior by subrecipients, "including regular compliance reports to the NEA’s Office for Civil Rights," investigate Maestra's use of federal funds and reported headcounts and mandate that both undergo training on federal antidiscrimination laws, FAIR said.