Dive Brief:
- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr told members of Congress that the agency’s investigation of companies’ allegedly discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion-based programs is “the right thing to do,” in a letter publicly released Tuesday.
- The letter is in response to a May 15 letter to the FCC sent by 18 members of Congress questioning the agency’s use of “its regulatory authority to pressure private companies to alter lawful internal corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies exceeding far beyond congressional intent.”
- “When it comes to ending unlawful discrimination, I believe there is much more common ground here than the public discourse might sometimes suggest,” Carr said.
Dive Insight:
U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-Va., a lead author of the letter to the FCC, said Carr’s response did not "assuage” concerns outlined in the letter and urged a full response.
“In our letter to Chairman Carr, we directly asked what definition or standard the commission uses to determine what constitutes an ‘invidious form’ of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. His reply provided no answer to that question and instead implied that all DEI programs are racial discrimination by default,” McClellan said in an emailed statement. “In reality, DEI programs should prevent and redress racial and unlawful discrimination.”
Carr called for fair treatment based on merit in the letter and cited President Donald Trump’s directives to “to root out unlawful forms of DEI discrimination.”
In January 2025, Trump published an executive order in support of “merit-based opportunity” that directed the heads of agencies to develop plans to “encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas in May characterized the Trump administration’s agenda as one that will “widen” the civil rights aperture, not narrow it.
“We are continuing to do discrimination work on behalf of workers of every single race and both sexes, but we’re not going to only pick and choose historically underrepresented groups or only women,” Lucas said at Fortune Magazine’s Workplace Innovation Summit.
In Carr’s letter, the chairman said FCC “takes seriously its responsibility to investigate and address allegations that regulated entities have been discriminating in violation of the federal nondiscrimination regulations. That is why the FCC has been taking enforcement action in the Disney case.”
FCC and Disney have been embroiled in a regulatory dispute allegedly over the company’s DEI initiatives, in which the agency has demanded Disney reapply early for renewal of its broadcast station licenses.
AT&T in December 2025 announced it was ending its DEI-related initiatives “not just in name but in substance” in a bid for FCC approval to purchase wireless spectrum licenses from UScellular.
Similarly, in July 2025, Paramount decommitted to DEI programs in order to have its merger with Skydance approved by the agency.
