California lawmakers on Thursday said the departure of high-profile black female executives in Hollywood

is his

a “disturbing pattern”, especially because

anus

the state

has

extended tax credits for film and television.

“It is a pattern that indicates that the early progress we made with that industry to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion above and below the line is now stalling,” Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) said at a press conference held by the California Legislative Black Caucus.

Smallwood-Cuevas is among lawmakers pushing for more answers from movie studios and

California

Gov. Gavin Newsom, which signed into law Monday extending $330 million a year movie and television tax credits for five years through the 2030-31 fiscal year. The tax cuts would create an estimated 60,000 jobs and $10 billion in investment. The Black Caucus said it plans to meet with the governor, film industry executives and labor partners in the coming months to push studios to provide more data on their diversity efforts and “real results ” to deliver.

The call to action highlights tensions between California lawmakers and movie studios over the lack of diversity that has long plagued Hollywood. Concerns about diversity have only increased after the US Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action policies in colleges in June.

“It’s not just a slap in the face to women. It’s a slap in the face to people of color,” said assembly member Mike Gipson (D-Carson).

Diversity efforts across industries ramped up after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, but Hollywood is still struggling to make its workforce more diverse. By 2022, whites accounted for 78% of the leads in the top theatrical releases, up from 72.4% in 2019, a UCLA Hollywood diversity report found. At the same time, as Hollywood studios released fewer movies to theaters, so did opportunities for people of color.

Mass layoffs in various industries have also affected diversity,

equity

and inclusion jobs harder than others. Diversity and inclusion jobs can include roles that help improve corporate culture through events, policies, and projects. In December 2022, the rate at which employees

in DEI roles

voluntarily or involuntarily left a company

in DEI roles

was 33% compared to 21% for non-DEI roles, according to a study by Revelio Labs, a New York-based human resources information company.

In June, four high-profile Hollywood executives who are black women left major corporations, including Warner Bros. Discovery, Walt Disney Co. and Netflix. The departure of leaders who focused on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts raised concerns among insiders and advocates that commitments to make Hollywood more diverse were just empty promises. Representatives from Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery say their diversity efforts are sincere. The Motion Picture Assn. and the governor’s office didn’t immediately have a comment.

California’s film and television tax credits, due back in 2025, include diversity requirements, but some lawmakers say they aren’t enough. For example, studios must file a diversity work plan broadly reflective of California’s population if they want the full tax credit. The tax credit recipients would report information to the California Film Commission, including how the project met or made a good faith effort to comply with the diversity work plan. Under the legislation, an expert on diversity, equity and inclusion in the film industry would also be added to the CFC board.

While negotiating the movie tax credits, Smallwood-Cuevas said she was urging the movie industry to put systems in place that measured employee retention so lawmakers could track progress toward making Hollywood more diverse, but movie studios resisted the idea.

Lawmakers said they want legislative action to add tracking of this information to the movie tax credit.

If the data shows that Hollywood isn’t moving the needle when it comes to diversity, Smallwood-Cuevas said, lawmakers will have to rethink the state’s investments.

“I think it takes time to see trends like this,” she said in an interview. “But what’s not helpful is when the leadership of that work is completely erased.”