In response to last week’s startling New York Times report on sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein, the film executive explained he would take a leave of absence from his company and channel his energy to select causes: opposing the NRA, making a movie about Donald Trump and launching an endowment for women filmmakers at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
“One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC,” he wrote. “While this might seem coincidental, it has been in the works for a year. It will be named after my mom and I won’t disappoint her.”
But in response to the mounting allegations against Weinstein, the school announced Tuesday it will not accept his donation.
“The USC School of Cinematic Arts will not proceed with Mr. Weinstein’s pledge to fund a $5M endowment for women filmmakers,” a spokesperson said in a statement to HuffPost.
While Weinstein initially took leave from The Weinstein Company to “learn about myself and conquer my demons,” the company directors fired him Sunday.
The number of women accusing the producer of sexual misconduct rose Tuesday, when The New York Times released a report in which Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie said Weinstein harassed them. The A-list actresses joined Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd and numerous other women with similar claims who had crossed Weinstein’s orbit over the past couple decades. In an explosive report The New Yorker published Tuesday, Ronan Farrow also detailed claims by three women ― out of 13 he spoke with for his story ― whose experiences with Weinstein amount to rape.
The producer’s name has begun disappearing in other ways from the industry he once dominated. Over the past few days, The Weinstein Company reportedly started auditioning ad agencies to pursue a name change, and gave networks permission to scrub Weinstein’s name from the credits in TV shows he has produced.
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