Honoree Declines FCC Accessibility Award
‘An act of resistance.’
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2025 – Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is being stood up by a prominent honoree.
Larry Goldberg, a recipient of the 2025 Chairman’s Awards for Advancement in Accessibility, announced he will not attend Thursday’s FCC ceremony in protest.
“After careful reflection, I have decided to decline the award,” Goldberg said in a statement posted with permission on the website of the Law Offices of Lainey Feingold.
Goldberg, who has nearly 30 years of experience in accessible media and public broadcasting, was selected for the award based on his extensive efforts developing captioning and audio description. This contribution greatly benefited the deaf community.
Over the past decade, Goldberg has been an active player at the FCC. He volunteered as co-chair of the FCC’s Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee and served as a member on the FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee.
In his statement, Goldberg emphasized that throughout his time at the FCC, he was being funded by public broadcasting companies.
“FCC Chairman Carr’s attacks on public broadcasting, along with Congress’ recent rescission of funding for public media, accompanied by the strong urging of the president, makes it clear that either very little thought has gone into these attacks or, more likely, political interference has been combined with a complete disregard for the First Amendment,” Goldberg stated. “People with disabilities, along with every other American, will suffer due to the withdrawal of funding for public media.”
Goldberg’s boycott follows a wave of federal actions against public broadcasting.
On July 18, 2025, Congress approved Trump’s $9 billion rescissions bill that cut $1.1 billion in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – the company that sponsors 1,500 PBS and NPR stations.
Member discussion