When Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr issued his big deregulation announcement on Wednesday, I have to admit I chortled a little bit at my desk.
The irony of the announcement just tickled my funny bone. At a certain point, there’s nothing else to do but laugh. For someone apparently dedicated to “alleviating unnecessary regulatory burdens” and appointed by an administration focused on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, Carr sure seems content to shamelessly waste FCC resources investigating the efforts of private companies like Comcast and Verizon to diversify their workforces.
The idea that such a crusade is wasteful isn’t even my opinion. It’s a statement based in fact.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, a whopping 73% of the telecommunications workforce is white. Among the same group, 70% were men.
We actually have Verizon’s workforce breakdown courtesy of its most recent 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission: nearly 53% white and 69% male.
So, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the sector is dominated by a white, male workforce. The whole point of diversity programs is to help balance this equation. Carr knows this.
Who, then, is Carr attempting to protect from “invidious forms of discrimination”? Sit with that for a moment.
Arguments that diversity programs encourage hiring of unqualified employees are simply made in bad faith. Telecom is one of those industries where it will quickly become apparent if someone can’t hack it. And operators need to broaden their talent pool to overcome a workforce shortage, especially if they’re going to execute on broadband expansions. Multiple telecom industry groups have told Fierce that diversity is critical to their recruitment efforts.
But Carr’s actions raise two other questions: first, whether the practices he is targeting are actually – as he claimed in his letter – illegal; and second, whether the FCC actually has any enforcement power on this front.
The answer to the first question is no – at least for the time being. Carr claimed to be acting in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order instructing agency heads to discourage diversity programs in the private sector. But last month a federal district court in Maryland issued an injunction halting enforcement of Trump’s order on the grounds that it violated the First (that pesky free speech one) and Fifth (due process) Amendments and failed to define “illegal DEI.”
An appeal, of course, is to be expected. But as global law firm Morrison Foerster noted before the Maryland ruling was handed down, Trump’s order did “not change the law on DEI programs. If a DEI program was lawful under federal antidiscrimination laws before EO 14173, it remains lawful afterwards.”
On the second point – whether the FCC actually has enforcement authority when it comes to DEI programs – well, I’ll defer to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks.
As the former lawyer put it in a statement after news of Carr’s Comcast investigation broke: “From what I know, this enforcement action is out of our lane and out of our reach.”
Circling back, Carr’s letter today is so overwhelmingly comprehensive, it looks like he wants to start from scratch defining the FCC’s purpose. But time spent on protecting white, male telecom workers seems like time wasted.
Op-eds from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff are opinion pieces that do not necessarily represent the opinions of Fierce Network.
