Diversity, Civil Rights and the National Broadband Plan

In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Congress requires the Federal Communications Commission to submit a national broadband plan that seeks to "ensure that all people of the United States have access to broadband capability." Congress does not look for a plan that provides access to a majority of U.S. citizens, but to all people. This is consistent with Section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which instructed the FCC to regularly report to Congress on whether advanced telecommunications services (what we now call broadband) were being made available to all Americans in a timely fashion. On October 2, the FCC conducted a day-long workshop that looked closely at what it would mean to craft a plan to extend broadband service to all Americans, regardless of age, gender, income, race, ethnicity, religion, political orientation, or disability. As FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell put it in opening the day's proceedings: "How are we going to be able to get these powerful technologies that can really improve the human condition so dramatically and so quickly - how do we get those resources into the hands of as many people as possible?" This is the first in a series of blogs on that day-long program focused on ensuring that the national broadband plan takes into account the rich diversity of our nation in accordance with equal rights under law. This first blog will address the overarching goal of the day and describe the blog entries to come. All too often, it seems, words become political noise and cease to carry the meanings conveyed by the dictionary or intended by the user. Perhaps the term "civil rights" and the word "diversity" have suffered this fate. One goal of the October 2 workshop was to recapture and clarify those terms. Diversity means diversity. It is not a code word for minorities, or creating privileges for some specific group. The panelists who generously gave of their time, and the staff members who created and managed the various platforms for the panelists to speak, represent the true meaning of the word diversity. The concerns of the poor, of people of color, of different religious beliefs, of people with different physical and mental impairments, of immigrants and of Native Americans, of Republicans like Commissioner McDowell and Democrats like Commissioner Copps, all of this diversity was represented in the day's discussion.