Trump’s FCC ‘Investigates’ Disney For Not Being Racist And Sexist Enough

Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr isn’t really interested in doing his actual job as head of the FCC. He’s not interested in protecting consumers or markets from notoriously shitty telecom monopolies. He’s not interested in protecting consumers or markets from harmful consolidation. He’s not interested in addressing the fact the telecom industry just saw the worst hack in history.

What’s he interested in? Harassing companies that don’t adequately bend the knee to Trump. And harassing companies that aren’t suitably racist or sexist enough for the Trump administration’s liking.

Carr’s already announced he’s launching phony “investigations” into Verizon and Comcast for not being racist and sexist enough (read: having some bare-bones inclusivity efforts on a website). He’s doing this by leveraging looming approvals for potential shitty mergers to bully these companies into submission. And because these companies are routinely stocked with abject cowards, it will probably work.

And Carr continues to expand his anti-civil-rights campaign on the taxpayer dime. Last week he announced he’s also “investigating” Disney/ABC for not being racist and sexist enough. From NPR (which Carr is also “investigating” for being insufficiently deferent to christofascist clods):

“In a letter to Disney CEO Robert Iger, Carr said the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau will review whether Disney or ABC have violated any FCC equal employment opportunity regulations. He added that the probe will apply to both past and current policies.”

As with all of these investigations, Carr is pulling his legal justifications entirely out of his ass. He’s basically trying to claim that marginal efforts to be more inclusive are themselves in violation of anti-discrimination rules and laws. Rules and laws they’re trying to destroy. It’s circular logic gibberish designed to give a thin veneer of legitimacy to pointless bullshit harassment. Sayeth Carr:

“Numerous reports indicate that Disney’s leadership went all in on invidious forms of DEI discrimination a few years ago and apparently did so in a manner that infected many aspects of your company’s decisions.”

In telecom, Carr has tried to re-interpret language in the Communications Act designed to prevent discrimination to attack efforts against discrimination. It will never hold up in even the shittiest of courts, but Carr of course doesn’t care about that. He wants the publicity generated by the fake investigations to do the bullying. He wants to scare companies with fake, costly inquiries into nonexistent violations.

Disney, like most feckless U.S. corporations, has been happy to oblige so far, scrubbing their websites and earnings reports of references to equality and inclusion, shortening warnings on Disney+ about how older Disney content may feature racist stereotypes, and shuttering already flimsy programs designed to help marginalized populations.

Of course the U.S. press, many of them keen to avoid harassment or get tax cuts and merger approvals, have proven appropriately feckless in their news coverage of Carr’s weird zealotry.

Authoritarian propagandists have hijacked the term “DEI” to help sanitize and normalize sexism/racism, and conflate half-assed corporate inclusivity initiatives with popular civil rights. Instead of saying Carr is “being racist,” “being sexist,” “embracing resegregation,” or “attacking civil rights,” they’re quick to adopt the more sterile “he’s investigating DEI” nomenclature:

And if you read through pretty much any coverage of these sham investigations, you’ll find they all go out of their way to frame Carr’s racist and sexist harassment of companies as serious adult policymaking. Because that’s what you get when you let journalism consolidate at the hands of feckless trust fund brunchlords who are more interested in tax cuts and access than serving the public interest.

Carr’s a weird zealot launching baseless investigations into companies because they’re not being suitably racist and sexist enough for his king’s liking. It’s pathetic, and the collective press and corporate response so far has been equally so.

Trump’s FCC ‘Investigates’ Disney For Not Being Racist And Sexist Enough

More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:

Trump Earlobe Nibbler Brendan Carr Faces Inquiry Into His Broad Abuse Of FCC Power
Anchorage Police Department: AI-Generated Police Reports Don’t Save Time
Iowa Book Ban Law Again Mostly Dead Following Return Trip To Federal Court

The post Trump’s FCC ‘Investigates’ Disney For Not Being Racist And Sexist Enough appeared first on Above the Law.