As AI increases the already extensive role of communications networks in enabling Americans to participate in the economy and civic life, will policy ensure equitable and inclusive access to the tools necessary to thrive online?

Current debates over current broadband policies, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, send mixed signals.

President Donald Trump and his allies’ constantly blame diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), without evidence, for tragic events––such as plane crashes, wildfires, and bridge collapses. And on Inauguration Day, the administration issued an executive order ending funding related to “illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”

But will Trump end former President Joe Biden's largest DEI program? No.

That program is the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Congress created it in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to bring high-speed internet networks to every home and business in America currently unserved by such networks. And while the Trump Commerce Department and Republicans in the House have proposed changes to BEAD, they are not calling for its end.

Indeed, at the recent confirmation hearing for Arielle Roth, the nominee to run the agency overseeing the BEAD program, Roth praised the effort, noting that “One of the most pressing tasks ahead of us is ensuring that we finish the job of expanding broadband access to unserved communities.” She further said that she looked “forward to working with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to ensure that the BEAD program is a success and lives up to its bipartisan legacy.”

The president, his administration, and Republicans generally would likely argue that BEAD is not a DEI program. The history and purposes of the program argue otherwise.

In appropriating funds for BEAD, which includes the word equity in its title, Congress found that: “(1) Access to affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband is essential to full participation in modern life in the United States; (2) The persistent ‘digital divide' in the United States is a barrier to the economic competitiveness of the United States and equitable distribution of essential public services, including health care and education; and (3) The digital divide disproportionately affects communities of color, lower-income areas, and rural areas, and the benefits of broadband should be broadly enjoyed by all.”

There’s a lot of equity and inclusion in those three findings. That is not a product of recent ideology; rather, it reflects more than a century of federal telecommunications policy.

Applying equity and inclusion aspirations to broadband goes back to the 2010 National Broadband Plan. It advocated that the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Universal Service Fund subsidize broadband rather than voice networks, precisely for the reasons noted in the 2021 legislation.

The equity and inclusion foundations of that advocacy go back further. The 1934 Communications Act—reaffirmed in the 1996 Telecommunications Act—mandated that “consumers in all regions of the Nation, including low-income consumers and those in rural, insular, and high cost areas, should have access to telecommunications and information services, including interexchange services and advanced telecommunications and information services, that are reasonably comparable to those services provided in urban areas and that are available at rates that are reasonably comparable to rates charged for similar services in urban areas.” The 1934 Act was itself an update of the 1913 Kingsbury Commitment, which established the principle that communications networks should serve all Americans.

So why has BEAD—justified by the economic and moral need for equity and inclusion—not raised the ire of Trump and his supporters?

One potential answer is that most of the funds will benefit Republican constituencies. As the funds are directed at locations currently unserved or underserved by broadband, nearly all the funds will flow to network deployments in rural areas.

As we can see with Congressional Republicans supporting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts, except when it comes to their own states, people tend to think that assistance going to them is in a different category than assistance going to others. It may be philosophically illogical to support the former while opposing the latter, but it is far from unusual.

Whatever the reasons for Republicans treating equity and inclusion efforts that largely serve Republicans differently from programs that serve others, all evidence points to Biden’s biggest DEI effort not being on the chopping block.

That, however, is cold comfort to those who supported BEAD and other programs to end all the nation’s many digital divides, including divides based on affordability, training, and institutional capacity. This goal will not be met if programs to increase digital equity and inclusion only serve rural Americans. Indeed, the current failure to see the DEI roots of BEAD foretells difficulties ahead in achieving inclusive and equitable access to essential services—a goal that in the past has enjoyed wide bipartisan support.

To succeed, we need to acknowledge both the legitimate concerns as well as how the term “DEI” has suffered severe branding problems.

Part of that branding problem stems from critics successfully positioning DEI as a recent phenomenon, arising from the “woke” mind. As noted above, the roots of equity and inclusion driving communications policy go back over a century. Further, the broader DEI’s roots are deep in American history and religious tradition and are not limited to communications networks.

They were at the heart of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sentiments in his second inaugural address, in which he said, “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern.” That determination led to long-standing, popular policies related to food, housing, health care, education, and other areas to assist Americans with limited means.

The moral foundation of making every citizen “the subject of his country’s concern and interest” goes back several millennia. Both the Old and New Testaments offer similar injunctions, such as Leviticus 25:35, mandating that “if any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them…so that
they can continue to live among you.”

Such sentiments provide the foundation stones of DEI. And history provides examples of the problematic consequences of ignoring the principles of equity and inclusion.

For example, Roosevelt created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to help the one-third of America that was ill-housed, making it easier for Americans to obtain mortgages. Unfortunately, the FHA restricted such lending in African American neighborhoods, leaving a devastating and long-lasting impact. FHA lending policy is one of the most significant reasons that the average wealth of an African American family headed by a college graduate is less than the average wealth of a white family headed by a high school graduate. As The Washington Post reported, “Since housing equity makes up about two-thirds of median household wealth, excluding black Americans from establishing equity during a time of unprecedented rises in home values locked in and exacerbated wealth disparities.”

Let’s project forward. Wealth creation in this century’s global information economy will require digital access and skills. So, just as restricting home ownership in the 1930s still causes negative reverberations today, if barriers to digital access and utilization are allowed to continue, it will weaken our economy and society for decades to come. As those decades introduce new technologies, we will have policy debates to come over how we ensure that all Americans have the tools necessary to thrive and participate in the economy and society of the Information Age.

The first such debate coming up will be over the future of the FCC’s universal service fund (USF). The fund faces both a legal challenge at the Supreme Court and an economic challenge due to the shrinking fund of revenues assessed to pay for USF. The debate in Congress over its future is likely to begin in earnest this fall once the Court has set the parameters for the FCC’s ability to raise and distribute the program’s funds.

There are a variety of mechanisms to address those challenges, as well as the continuing digital divides based on affordability, training, and institutional capacity. As we have done in the past, such as adding the E-Rate program to USF and allowing USF funds to be used for mobile services, we need to re-examine how the program needs to adjust to new technologies, such as AI. And we need to design the program to take advantage of the communications capabilities to drive greater efficiency in government, as indicated in a recent study that found that the now-expired Affordable Connectivity Program, which cost $7.3 billion a year, generated an estimated $28.9–$29.5 billion in
annual healthcare cost savings.

The underlying challenge, however, is whether we as a country are still committed to equitable and inclusive access for all, or whether the vision only applies to favored
geographies or demographics based on partisan politics. 

As we approach that debate and others involving essential services, we should be willing to abandon the language of problematic DEI initiatives. We should, however, stand firm in continuing to support the economic and ethical foundations of those earlier efforts.

Roosevelt’s effort to “make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern” was not executed perfectly, but it was the right vision and paid huge dividends in creating a middle class that drove large economic gains in the subsequent decades. When it comes to our time, the needs will be different, our execution will have to improve, but the vision of equity and inclusion regarding the essential tools to participate in the economy and society can pay similar dividends in the decades ahead.

Blair Levin is the Policy Advisor to New Street Research and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Metro. Prior to joining New Street, Blair served as Chief of Staff to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt (1993-1997), directed the writing of the United States National Broadband Plan (2009-2010), and was a policy analyst for the equity research teams at Legg Mason and Stifel Nicolaus. Levin is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all people in the U.S. have access to competitive, High-Performance Broadband regardless of where they live or who they are. We believe communication policy - rooted in the values of access, equity, and diversity - has the power to deliver new opportunities and strengthen communities.

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