Eighth Circuit Vacates FCC Digital Discrimination Rules

On May 6, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued a sweeping ruling that vacates—wipes off the books entirely—the Federal Communications Commission's final rules prohibiting digital discrimination in broadband access. The decision leaves millions of consumers—particularly those in low-income communities and communities of color—without the federal anti-discrimination framework Congress directed the FCC to create. The ruling simultaneously removes regulatory obligations that broadband providers, contractors, landlords, and other entities had been subject to under the now-vacated rules. The ruling affects every stakeholder in the broadband ecosystem: consumers who believed the rules protected them, broadband providers who challenged them, state broadband officials implementing the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, digital equity practitioners whose advocacy shaped the rules, and the FCC itself, which is now under an explicit court-recognized obligation to start the rulemaking process over.