Broadband Breakfast on April 16, 2025 - DEI ≠ M&A?
What constitutes an 'invidious' DEI policy in regulators' eyes?
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has recently signaled his readiness to block merger and acquisition deals from companies with certain diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. With several high-profile telecommunications mergers in the pipeline, this stance could dramatically reshape the M&A playing field.
What does the Communications Act say on the subject of racial equality? How are companies adapting their DEI strategies to navigate scrutiny from the Trump administration and the FCC? And how might DEI policies constitute "invidious forms of discrimination," in the eyes of regulators?
Broadband Breakfast
Panelists
- Matt Wood, Vice President of Policy and General Counsel, Free Press
- Timothy A. Simon, Principal and Founder, TAS Strategies
- James R. Copland, Senior Fellow and Director of Policy, Manhattan Institute
- Drew Clark (moderator), CEO and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast
Matt Wood helps to shape Free Press's efforts to protect the open internet, prevent media concentration, promote affordable broadband deployment, and safeguard press freedom. Before joining the organization, he worked at the public interest law firm Media Access Project and in the communications practice groups of two private law firms in Washington, D.C. Before that, he served as an editor-in-chief for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, worked for PBS, and spent time at several professional and college radio and television stations.
Timothy Alan Simon, was appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission on February 15, 2007 ending his term on December 31, 2012. Prior to this appointment Simon served as Appointments Secretary in the Office of the Governor, the first African American in California history to hold this post. Prior to public service he was in-house counsel and compliance officer with Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Robertson Stephens. In 2013 Simon created TAS STRATEGIES and serves as an attorney and consultant on utility, infrastructure, financial services and broadband projects. Simon was also member of the NARUC Board of Directors and served on several committees within the organization.
James R. Copland is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of Legal Policy. In those roles, he develops and communicates novel, sound ideas on how to improve America’s civil- and criminal-justice systems. His latest book, The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite is Governing America (Encounter Books), was published in September 2020. He has testified before Congress as well as state and municipal legislatures; and has authored many policy briefs, book chapters, articles and opinion pieces in a variety of publications, including the Harvard Business Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, The Federalist Society, and USA Today.
Breakfast Media LLC CEO Drew Clark has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing tool to collect and verify broadband data left unpublished by the Federal Communications Commission. As CEO and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media community advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.
