California Public Utilities Judge Seeks Diversity Goals in Verizon Merger

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2025 – A California Public Utilities Commission judge is recommending the agency approve Verizon’s $20 billion acquisition of Frontier, but only if the company accepts new diversity requirements. 

Verizon has told the CPUC it is worried that more diversity conditions could put the company on a collision course with the Federal Communications Commission and its Chairman Brendan Carr, who has required companies to ditch initiatives around diversity, equity and inclusion before approving mergers.

The judge’s decision, if adopted by the CPUC, would impose a slate of conditions with extra DEI requirements, even as Verizon has already agreed with the FCC to no longer maintain any workforce or supplier diversity goals.

Before the CPUC, Verizon had opposed additional conditions, fearing they would conflict with its federal commitments to the FCC. 

Diversity policies have been a hang up in the CPUC’s review of the deal, as the agency and other parties questioned whether anti-DEI commitments Verizon made to secure federal approval would conflict with California state rules. 

For her part CPUC Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Fox, who has been overseeing the rulemaking, wrote she thought the company could comply with both conditions.

“We find that the commitments in the Verizon-FCC letter can be consistent with California law when taken along with additional commitments and requirements,” she wrote.

The FCC approved the merger on May 16, 2025.

Potential CPUC conditions

The earliest the CPUC might vote on the proposed decision would be its Jan. 15, 2026, meeting, according to the decision, which was posted Friday.

The judge’s decision would require Verizon to establish a recruiting pipeline at California state universities and community colleges “aiming to recruit from underrepresented populations,” and to contribute to training and internship programs there.

For the next five years, the company would also have to file annual reports detailing how it was implementing the commitments it outlined to the FCC.

“Verizon and Frontier must specify any changes that have been detrimental to their maintaining a diverse/equitable workforce (as may be gleaned from employee survey)” – another requirement in the proposed decision – “and how they will address those detrimental impacts and what changes they will make,” according to the judge’s decision.

Prior commitments to FCC

Among the new policies Verizon outlined in a May letter the FCC's Carr was a commitment to “no longer maintain any workforce diversity goals” and to end benchmarks for spending with minority-owned suppliers.

Verizon declined to comment on Fox’s decision. Attorneys from the company are scheduled to meet with CPUC staff on Friday, Dec. 19, to discuss the proposed decision, according to a filing posted Monday.

The supplier spending benchmarks are what caused some consternation at the CPUC, as the agency requires large telecoms and utilities to report that metric and work toward certain goals.

Verizon had committed in a settlement agreement to spend $500 million with small businesses in the state over the next five years, and said it would use CPUC diverse spend benchmarks and continue to report its progress relative to those. 

That didn’t persuade Fox, who said that without specific goals for working with minority-owned businesses when possible, even spending $500 million “appears to be a step backward on the goals” of the agency’s rules. She also chided the settlement agreement for lacking any commitments to workforce diversity.

Comments on the proposed decision are due to the CPUC on Jan. 1, 2026, and replies are due five days later.

Verizon had opposed extra DEI conditions

Verizon and Frontier have repeatedly raised concerns about additional diversity requirements.

“It is also important to realize that attempting to impose conditions that are contrary to or in conflict with the commitments Verizon made to the FCC in connection with its approval of this Transaction on a national level would raise serious preemption issues and jeopardize the Transaction and its significant benefits,” Verizon and Frontier wrote in an October brief to the CPUC.

The companies said the FCC was clear that the company’s DEI rollbacks were “material to the FCC’s approval,” and that any company looking to get a deal past the FCC would have to make similar commitments.

AT&T and T-Mobile have each done so, and soon after received FCC approval for a major spectrum purchase and the acquisition of two regional fiber providers, respectively.

The Frontier acquisition is part of Verizon’s effort to expand its fiber footprint, and thus its ability to offer fixed and mobile broadband to the same customers. The company is aiming to hit more than 30 million passings by 2028, and eventually to count 40 million passings.

Update: This story was update to include additional information from the proposed decision.