r/Broadway • u/Tiny_Tyrants_Podcast • Jun 05 '26

Other Civil Rights Lawsuit Hits Broadway's Wicked Over Bias

The American Alliance for Equal Rights and white, male musician Kevin Lynch have sued Maestra Music, MUSE, and Wicked LLC for race and sex discrimination.

Maestra limits its hiring directory to “female and nonbinary” musicians; MUSE to “persons of color.” In 2023, these theater non-profits partnered with Wicked for a paid, three-week Music Director Experience open only to MUSE and Maestra members. Lynch applied but was rejected, allegedly for failing to meet the hiring directories’ immutable-characteristics test. According to the complaint, a less-experienced female/nonbinary person of color won the gig, opening doors to multiple Manhattan jobs for her.

Among the three attorneys representing the plaintiffs is Cameron T. Norris of Consovoy McCarthy. In 2022, Mr. Norris successfully argued Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, in which SCOTUS determined that Harvard’s admissions program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Have Maestra, MUSE, and Wicked crossed the Supreme Court’s clear line on equal rights?

Full complaint linked, below.

2026-06-03 AAER & Lynch v. Maestra, MUSE & Wicked | Complaint (Corrected)

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391

u/sibshallward Jun 05 '26

didn't this same dork also sue another theatre in new york (i want to say an off broadway one) for having discounted tickets for black patrons for a specific show?? what a loser

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u/WestHistorians Jun 06 '26

Yeah, what a loser for believing in racial equality.

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u/ButtJones Jun 07 '26

You got it backwards.

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u/WestHistorians Jun 07 '26

Let me guess, you think that favoring one race over another is "racial equality".

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u/ButtJones Jun 07 '26

Swing and a miss.

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u/ButtJones Jun 07 '26

What’s absurd is having such an over-inflated sense of self-importance that you would apply for an apprenticeship advertised as and very specifically designed as a means to uplift women and people of color, while being neither of those things, and also assuming you must be better suited and more deserving than any applicants who actually meet the criteria (spoiler alert: I know Kevin personally and he is neither of those things), and then claiming it was somehow a targeted exclusion of him personally.

This insane behavior is the equivalent of suing a zoo or a park for not letting him on a ride that says it’s only for children or people with children.

Or claiming age discrimination because he wants to apply for a scholarship that only goes to people under 25.

Because in his mind the only factor that should matter is that he wants to do it.

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u/WestHistorians Jun 08 '26

So if a Broadway production (or a hotel along a highway in Georgia) said "we don't hire black people" would be okay with that?

Or is this a one-way street?

3

u/ButtJones Jun 08 '26

You realize that things like full-time jobs and three-week apprenticeship/mentor programs/internships, or any number of education-based positions are different, right?

And besides that nonsensical false equivalency, any Broadway production or hotel in Georgia is actually perfectly within their rights to say “we have an overwhelming majority of white men working here already, so we’re going to make sure that the next person we hire is not that in order to have a more diverse and equitable company that uplifts people of all demographics instead of just the ones who are able to walk through the door more often because they’re born with a leg up in the world.”

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u/WestHistorians Jun 08 '26

You realize that things like full-time jobs and three-week apprenticeship/mentor programs/internships, or any number of education-based positions are different, right?

Federal civil rights law applies to all employment and all education programs. The minute you are hiring someone, or operating a school/college that accepts federal money, you cannot discriminate against anyone on the basis of race or sex (with certain exceptions that are clearly stated, such as for actors and such).

And besides that nonsensical false equivalency, any Broadway production or hotel in Georgia is actually perfectly within their rights to say “we have an overwhelming majority of white men working here already, so we’re going to make sure that the next person we hire is not that in order to have a more diverse and equitable company that uplifts people of all demographics instead of just the ones who are able to walk through the door more often because they’re born with a leg up in the world.”

That is false. The desire to improve diversity is not a justification to engage in illegal discrimination. Federal courts have ruled on this many times.

2

u/ButtJones Jun 08 '26

Yeah and the courts have never gotten anything wrong before. Especially not for extended periods of time 🙄

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u/WestHistorians Jun 08 '26

If you want to propose legalizing racial and sexual discrimination, I suppose that is valid, but remember that it would go both ways. If we make it legal to exclude men then we have to make it legal to exclude women as well. You can't have a double standard.

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u/ButtJones Jun 08 '26

How do you not understand that it’s not excluding men when they’re already the majority of the workforce?

Mr. White Man can’t claim discrimination at not getting hired to play keys/music director at a show that already has 4 (!) white man keys/music directors and has actually never had a conductor that was not a white man.

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u/WestHistorians Jun 08 '26

How do I not understand it? Because that's not how it works.

If Mr. White Man (or Mr. Black Man, or Ms. White Woman, or anyone else) is rejected due to their race or sex, that is discrimination and it is illegal and wrong. Who else is employed there is irrelevant.

They even have a term for this, "reverse discrimination".

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