Since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it was altering membership rules in response to an outcry over the diversity of its voters and nominees, another uproar has erupted around Hollywood. Many academy members are protesting that the new measures unjustly scapegoat older academy members and imply they’re racist.

Fiery letters have poured into the academy. Trade magazines are littered with critical op-eds from members. Meanwhile, civil rights leaders and others say the academy’s actions didn’t go far enough. More steps are needed, they say, to make the Oscars and the industry more inclusive.

Reforms meant to calm a crisis seem to have only further enflamed it. This year’s Feb. 28 Academy Awards are looking less like a glitzy gala and more like a battlefield.

“We all have to calm down a bit. The conversation has become unduly vitriolic,” says Rod Lurie, the writer-director of “Straw Dogs” and “The Contender” and a member of the academy’s directors’ branch. “Nobody in the academy should dignify any accusations of racism,” Lurie said in an interview, “but there obviously are biases that are created by the demographics of the academy.”

Some academy members, while applauding efforts to diversify the academy, said taking away voting rights from older members smacks of ageism, and that they aren’t to blame for the dearth of minority nominees in the past two years; the industry is.

William Goldstein, a composer and longtime academy member, chastised the academy in a Los Angeles Times editorial for “capitulating to political correctness” while missing the bigger picture.

In a letter to the academy, Stephen Geller, a member of the writers branch and screenwriter of “Slaughterhouse-Five,” accused academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs of “grey-listing” its older members.

James Woods, the 68-year-old, twice-nominated actor, went further: “The motion picture academy announced separate bathroom facilities today: one for Members and one for Old White People,” he mocked on Twitter.

The academy indirectly responded to the furor in the “frequently asked questions” section of its website on Monday. “We’re not excluding older members,” it reads. “These rules are not about age. In fact, under the new rules many veteran Academy members will retain voting privileges.”

Others, though, maintained that the academy’s steps don’t address the real problems of the industry. Directors Guild of America president Paris Barclay in a statement said “structural changes” were needed in Hollywood to change hiring practices.

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