Controversy At IDA Bursts Into Open After Four Senior Staff Exit Leading Documentary Organization

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Four senior staffers who resigned in protest from the International Documentary Association are responding to a public statement from the IDA board dismissing their concerns about how the nonprofit organization is being run under new executive director Rick Pérez.The board published a letter on the IDA website on Friday acknowledging “a number of documentary community members have expressed concern about recent changes at the IDA – particularly the resignations of four staff members.”The board wrote that it hired “outside legal counsel and an independent investigator” to look into complaints from the four staffers – Maggie Bowman, Jina Chung, Amy Halpin and Poh Si Teng – about workplace conduct by Pérez.“To protect the individuals’ privacy, we can’t address the specifics of the complaints in this letter…,” the board said, “however we can share that this investigator concluded that the claims were unsubstantiated.” The letter reiterated, “…[T]his result means that there were absolutely no findings to substantiate any purported discrimination or other claims.”The board took issue with the staffers for announcing their resignations “before the conclusions of the investigation were communicated.

We are saddened that they decided to leave before an open and collaborative conversation could be had among staff, our new executive director Rick Pérez, and the Board.”But in a statement exclusively obtained by Deadline, Bowman (the IDA’s former interim director of advocacy and programming), Chung (former senior director of partnerships and development), Halpin (former deputy director) and Teng (former director of IDA Funds and the Enterprise Program) said they had reached out repeatedly to the board, beginning last