Time's Up will formally cease all operations this month
Formed in 2018 following the #MeToo Movement, the organization will allocate all its remaining funds to the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund
Five years after forming as an advocacy group for survivors of sexual harassment, Time’s Up is ending all operations and directing its remaining $1.7 million of funds towards the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund (TULDF), according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Founded in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo Movement, the Hollywood-based organization became more widely known through the 2018 Golden Globe Awards, where those attending wore pins bearing the group’s name as a form of protest; Oprah Winfrey closed out the show with an impassioned speech referencing Time’s Up.
According to THR, the group went on to raise more than $22 million in its first ten months, with support from some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names like Winfrey, Meryl Streep, Shonda Rhimes, Katie McGrath and the Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
However, in the past few years, the organization has been under fire for a series of scandals. In August 2021, a report from the New York Attorney General revealed that former governor Andrew Cuomo sought advice from Time’s Up chief Tina Tchen and TULDF co-founder Roberta Kaplan after facing sexual harassment allegations. Both Tchen and Kaplan resigned, with the organization completely overhauling its remaining governing board and members as a result of the revelations.
Prior to the Cuomo situation, concerns had already been popping up over conflicts Time’s Up faced between its mission and internal decisions. In early 2021, 18 members of Time’s Up healthcare division resigned after the group’s handling of allegations against co-founder and former board member Esther Choo for failing to report sexual harassment complaints made by a co-worker at Oregon Health & Science University. Back in 2020, activists questioned the group’s decision to side with Oprah Winfrey (one of Time’s Up’s original donors) after she dropped out of an executive producer role for On The Record, a documentary centered around the accusers of Russell Simmons.
While the organization will no longer operate, TULDF, which is separately controlled by the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C., will continue to function and allocate its resources toward sexual harassment cases.