Mission Statement

You may be familiar with the Screen Actors Guild’s diversity efforts through our special reports, marketing campaigns or events. But there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. We work tirelessly to advocate diverse hiring of underrepresented groups, including minorities, women and the disabled, in the entertainment industry. Take a look at the many ways we strive to achieve our goal of “casting the American scene.”

We champion your civil rights.

If you’ve been discriminated against on the basis of age, nationality, race, sex, religion or disability, we will do our best to ensure your claim is thoroughly investigated and redressed. We work to ensure compliance with equal employment opportunity laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and SAG’s collective bargaining agreements.

You’re entitled to all the protections provided by Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, SAG’s commercial and theatrical contracts, and state and federal laws. We’re here to educate members and the industry on what protections exist. If these protections are compromised, you’ll have the weight of SAG behind you. We’ll help you file a claim. We’ll investigate. We’ll do our best to ensure your claim is redressed.

We educate.

Why should the industry care about diversity casting? And what rights do our members have? Our job is to answer these fundamental questions through our education programs. We believe education goes a long way towards stimulating more diversity in the industry. The industry needs to know why diverse casting is a benefit, while members need to know what opportunities exist for them.

Through workshops, symposiums, and panel discussions, we bring SAG members and industry pros together to discuss issues of diverse casting. Through our diversity committees, we initiate detailed studies of issues that affect your ability to get work. We also publish an annual casting data report, based on data submitted to SAG by film or television productions.

And for the public at large, we are a wealth of research information.

We lobby those who can hire you.

The beauty of the union is our collective power. As an individual, you may not be able to meet with network executives or ad agencies, but SAG diversity representatives do. Through them, your voice is heard. We initiate meetings with those who have the power to make hiring decisions – networks and studio executives and ad agencies. We even meet regularly with our sister unions, including the Director’s Guild of America, Writer’s Guild of America and AFTRA. Hopefully, our lobbying efforts will result in more hiring opportunity for our members.

We reach out to the community.

Need a tight-rope walker who can sing operatically? We supply the community with tools to take advantage of the mountains of talent represented by SAG. And we invest in marketing and publicity campaigns to educate the industry on these tools, what we do and how we can help. Without these efforts, industry pros may not know SAG has a skills bank where they can search our membership for even the most obscure talents.

We also recognize we’re not alone in fighting for more diverse casting. We partner with other organizations, like the Non Traditional Casting Project, on joint efforts, and ensure that you, the member, know these resources exist.

If you’re a low-budget producer, you may also benefit from SAG’s diversity in casting initiatives.

We support your committees.

Our diversity committees are the voice of the organization. The diversity department supports the national and local committees and subcommittees both financially and administratively. These committees hold regular meetings to discuss the issues that most affect members. Whether you’re African American, a plus-sized actress, or Native American, you’ll find moral support and solidarity in one of our committees. Check the committees page for a complete list of committees.