What the FCC Can Do to "Stay Woke" and Build a legacy of Advancing Civil Rights in the Digital Age

[Commentary] As we remember the 50th Anniversary of the silencing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream; as we March for Our Lives to end the senseless violence that continues to silence the dreams of so many; and as we continue to fight for justice and equality in social, economic, and digital treatment; we urge the Federal Communications Commission to take its rightful place in history by mirroring Dr. King’s legacy of compassion, equality, and opportunity. A good start would be for the FCC to act on several imperatives that will help to close the digital divide:

• Regulate by Compassion—Rethink the FCC’s Inmate Calling, Lifeline, and Katrina Rulings that urgently are needed to protect the incarcerated, the poor, and the dispossessed.
• Ensure Equality—Finish the job of ensuring equal employment opportunity by preventing word-of-mouth recruitment from homogeneous workplaces; guarantee equal access to broadband by preventing redlining of lower income and ethnic neighborhoods; and encourage other regulators to follow its lead.
• Champion Opportunity—Revitalize dormant FCC policies that promote diverse ownership of media, infrastructure, and the dissemination of spectrum licenses; extend the cable procurement opportunity rules to all industries regulated by the FCC; use the agency as a bully pulpit to promote apprenticeship and workforce development in the wired and wireless industries that it regulates.