FCC Chairman: Disney Appears To Have Committed 'Intentional Discrimination' Tied To DEI
It's no secret that the Disney company loves DEI. As someone who worked at ESPN for nearly a decade, I can certainly attest to that fact. Many meetings I was forced to attend extolled the virtues of hiring and promoting non-white males as a positive thing, instead of calling it by its actual name: discrimination.
Well, the FCC is investigating Disney and ABC for exactly that. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, he's made it one of his main missions to eradicate DEI, which seeks to separate Americans by their skin color, gender and sexual orientation, rather than judging people based on their job performance.
To that end, the FCC is taking a hard look at the Disney corporation, in addition to looking at the government agencies targeted by Trump's executive order ending DEI.
FCC chairman Brendan Carr says the agency's preliminary investigation into Disney and ABC showed that they appear to have committed "intentional discrimination" tied to DEI efforts. (Photo by
(Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images)
"After President Trump came in, he issued an executive order to end the federal government's promotion of DEI. We did that at the FCC – you would be shocked; we were spending millions and millions of dollars at the FCC promoting DEI," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told CNBC. "In fact, it was listed as the agency's number-two budget priority and strategic priority."
Then, Carr turned his attention to updating the investigation into Disney, which began in March.
"Disney and ABC, in particular, are ones I'm very concerned about. The preliminary data indicates that they look like they were doing intentional discrimination, potentially, along race and gender. If that's true, that's a really big deal," he said.
Although Disney CEO Bob Iger has said the company plans to roll back its DEI efforts, Carr cautioned that might not be enough to avoid punishment.
"It's a good thing that they're heading in the right direction, [but we] want to make sure that it's in substance and not in name only and… we've got to look at the conduct that took place in the past; if they were sort of intentionally discriminating on race and gender that's a potential problem under the FCC own [Equal Employment Opportunity] rules," Carr added.
When asked about those potential punishments, Carr said the FCC is looking at the "full suite of consequences" for Disney.
It's funny that left-wing companies, politicians and celebrities never stop talking about the dangers of discrimination. Except, of course, when they agree with that discrimination.
It's good that the federal government is taking a look at DEI efforts for what they really are: a cleverly-disguised way of saying that a company is going to do its hiring and promoting based on immutable characteristics rather than, you know, qualifications, education, experience and job performance.