Time’s Up is shutting down a year after the scandalized organization promised a “major reset,” the AP reported on Saturday. Remaining funds will be distributed to the independently-run Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund.
Board chair Gabrielle Sulzberger said that all operations will halt by the end of January. She, Ashley Judd and Colleen DeCourcy, the only remaining board members of Time’s Up Now and the Time’s Up Foundation, will leave their posts.
The decision comes just over five years after its public launch won resounding support in the wake of allegations against Harvey Weinstein and a wave of other industry predators. Hundreds of female-identifying actors, producers and agents signed an open letter pledging to make the entertainment industry a “safe and equitable place for everyone” and to uplift women’s voices in workplaces across the nation.
The organization began to implode in August 2021 when a report revealed that it had advised former New York governor Andrew Cuomo following his sexual harassment scandal. Chairwoman Roberta Kaplan, who reportedly helped Cuomo discredit one of his accusers, resigned days later. Although CEO and president Tina Tchen initially said she would not resign, she stepped down after a New York Times exposé revealed conflicts of interest within the organization, fueling further internal and public backlash.
In November 2021, Time’s Up announced that it was “in the midst of a structural and systematic reset.”
Sulzberger said it took another year for the newly-reduced board to arrive at the decision to shut down.
“Very simply, the Legal Defense Fund really reflects who we were not only at our inception but really at our core,” Sulzberger told the AP. “We really just decided that at the end of the day, we needed to go back to our roots. (The fund) was the first initiative that we formed and funded, and remains at the heart of everything we stood for.”
The Washington-based National Women’s Law Center oversees the fund, which powers the Legal Network for Gender Equity. According to its website, the Network provides legal and administrative services, as well as financial aid, to victims of sexual discrimination in the workplace. The AP reports that most clients identify as low-income and 40% as people of color.
In an email to TheWrap, Time’s Up said that “during this transition phase, we will not be making press statements or conducting interviews.”
