“Verizon has also committed to ending DEI-related practices as specified in the FCC’s record and has reaffirmed the merged entity’s commitment to equal opportunity and nondiscrimination,” the agency said, using the abbreviation for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“This will ensure that the combined business will enact policies and practices consistent with the law and the public interest.”
“Verizon recognizes that some DEI policies and practices could be associated with discrimination,” Vandana Venkatesh, the company’s chief legal officer, said in the May 15 letter.
The changes were being made “not just in name or in the way they are described, but in substance.”
The company shall no longer take into account identity-based goals when considering hiring, promotions, and bonuses for executives. Verizon said it updated supplier and sponsorship policies to remove gender- and race-based criteria.
In February, Carr suggested that Verizon’s DEI efforts could influence the agency’s decision on the Verizon–Frontier deal.
With the transaction now approved, Verizon can upgrade and expand Frontier’s existing network spread across 25 states. Verizon is expecting to deploy fiber connections to 1 million or more homes every year, the FCC statement said.
“By approving this deal, the FCC ensures that Americans will benefit from a series of good and commonsense wins. The transaction will unleash billions of dollars in new infrastructure builds in communities across the country—including rural America,” Carr said.
“This investment will accelerate the transition away from old, copper line networks to modern, high-speed ones. And it delivers for America’s tower and telecom crews who do the hard, often gritty work needed to build high-speed networks.”
Carr Targeting DEI
President Donald Trump announced that Carr was his choice for the post of FCC chair on Nov. 17, 2024.“The FCC’s most recent budget request said that promoting DEI was the agency’s second-highest strategic goal,” Carr said in a post on social media platform X later that day. “Starting next year, the FCC will end its promotion of DEI.”
The post included a screenshot of the FCC’s “Strategic Goal 2” at the time, according to which “advancing equity is core to the agency’s management and policymaking processes and will benefit all Americans.”
“In the very first section of the Communications Act, Congress stated that it created the FCC for the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication ‘without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex,’” he said.
“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.”
Carr said he was eliminating DEI from the FCC’s strategic plan and budget, ending the agency’s DEI advisory group and equity action plan, and getting rid of DEI analysis from FCC economic reports, among other things.
