Statement of REC Networks: Digital Equity
Digital Equity remains alive and well at REC.
Within REC’s “Objectives” Statement, we include “Digital Equity”, which was inspired by former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s initiatives to promote equity in the offering of telecommunications services and preventing so-called “digital discrimination”.
In my years working in the telecommunications industry, I had witnessed such digital discrimination by telecom providers where it came to advanced build-outs of infrastructure. In other words, areas with lower incomes did not always promptly receive advanced services, such as higher speed internet services.
REC’s Digital Equity objective statement states:
Digital Equity in the eyes of REC’s objectives is to assure that as many different types of groups are represented in radio, not just on the air, but in the boardroom and reflected in the programming on the radio as well as encouraging diverse participation in other non-broadcast spectrum services. Our perception of equity is to assure that majority and minority populations are treated equally and have the same opportunities.
Digital Equity is more than just race and gender, but also includes religion (including non-Christian faiths as well as those who choose not to practice religion), sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, preference of spoken language, socioeconomic status, disability (physical and otherwise), age and other similar demographic factors.
In many of the rulemaking proceedings during the Rosenworcel administration, there was an opportunity to comment on how the proposed rules would impact digital equity.
With today’s announcement from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, all of the various diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs have been discontinued, pursuant to an executive order from President Donald Trump. This includes the discontinuance of the Commission’s Digital Discrimination Task Force.
Today’s announcement by Chairman Carr changes nothing at REC. Even though the current administration refuses to recognize digital discrimination, or in other words, the impact of FCC actions where it comes to subsets of Americans who would identify in one or more diverse classifications, REC will continue to use our First Amendment rights to continue to evaluate rulemaking proceedings advanced by the Commission and we will continue to provide our own analysis on the impacts to digital equity in our comments and other communications with the Commission.