It took her a while, but Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman is finally ready to face the criticism about her sitcom’s lack of diversity. In an attempt to “course-correct,” Kauffman has donated $4 million to her alma mater, Brandeis University, to establish an endowed professorship in the school’s African and African American studies department. Brandeis’ African and African American studies department was established in 1969 and is one of the oldest such departments in the country. The Marta F. Kauffman ’78 Professorship in African and African American Studies will help the department recruit more students and teachers, as well as support one distinguished scholar in the program. Friends has long been criticized for featuring almost zero people of color in the show, whic...
No “Southern pride” or sedition here. The CMA Festival has announced that Confederate flags will officially be banned from the annual event, which is scheduled to take place in Nashville next week. The new rule is noted by event organizers on the festival’s official website, with “Confederate flag imagery of any kind” listed among other objects prohibited on festival grounds including bikes, drones, fireworks, and drug paraphernalia. The news was first reported by Variety. “This year’s CMA Fest is our first major fan-facing event in nearly three years,” the Country Music Association said in a statement. “We have always had policies in place that protect the safety of our fans and ban discrimination, but we felt it was important to further refine our language to explicitly outline what will...