The Trump administration’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the media and entertainment sector has turned its attention on Comcast.
The media conglomerate has confirmed that Federal Communications Chair Brendan Carr has notified Comcast his agency is to investigate the company’s DEI practices. “We have received an inquiry from the Federal Communications Commission and will be cooperating with the FCC to answer their questions,” a Comcast spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday in a statement.
Comcast on its corporate website says of its DEI initiatives: “We believe that a diverse, equitable, and inclusive company is a more innovative and successful one. Across our workforce, products, and content, we embrace diversity of background, perspective, culture, and experience, and together with our partners, we are working to fight injustice against any race, ethnicity, gender or sexual identity, disability, or veteran status.”
Carr’s letter to Comcast was earlier reported by Newsmax.
The pressure from the U.S. government to end diversity programs has prompted several companies to retreat from efforts to boost inclusion from underrepresented communities in their ranks. To fall into line with a new FCC policy to rein in media and entertainment companies, Disney in a regulatory filing said it has scrubbed references to its “Reimagine Tomorrow” initiative, which launched in 2021 with the purpose of amplifying underrepresented voices.
And PBS, which faces its own investigation by the FCC, has closed its DEI office to comply with a recent executive order from President Donald Trump. “In order to best ensure we are in compliance with the President’s executive order around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion we have closed our DEI office. The staff members who served in that office are leaving PBS,” read a statement from a PBS rep on Feb. 10.
FCC chair Carr, a Trump appointee, has said he will investigate PBS and NPR, which both receive government funding, to see if government rules around the naming of financial sponsors on the air has been violated.
And in January, a day after Trump’s executive order titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” Carr directed the FCC to end its own DEI effort. “Promoting invidious forms of discrimination runs contrary to the Communications Act and deprives Americans of their rights to fair and equal treatment under the law. It also represents a wasteful expenditure of taxpayer resources,” he wrote in a statement.