A document from the University of Oregon, which operates the festival, showed that, when he was fired in August, former director Matthew Halls was the subject of two complaints. One was the widely-reported joke, made to an African-American singer, that someone who overheard it interpreted as racist; the second was that “Halls does not call on [women] during rehearsals and favors the men. … It is the responsibility of those in power not to perpetuate old patriarchal systems.”