FCC chair launches investigation into Disney over DEI
The hits keep coming for The Walt Disney Co. — and not in the way that the media empire would probably prefer.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr announced Friday on the social media platform X that he is opening an investigation into Disney, the parent company of ABC, over potential violations of the FCC's equal employment opportunity regulations through the company's efforts that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
"For decades, Disney focused on churning out box office and programming successes. But then something changed," Carr wrote in a letter to Disney that he also posted online. "Disney has now been embroiled in rounds of controversy surrounding its DEI policies."
The Walt Disney Co. said it received Carr's letter and will cooperate.
"We are reviewing the Federal Communications Commission’s letter, and we look forward to engaging with the commission to answer its questions," a Disney spokesperson told The Hill.
The FCC last month launched a similar probe into Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal, over DEI concerns.
Letters that Carr sent to both companies note the FCC wants to ensure that the companies "are not promoting invidious forms of discrimination."
Since President Trump took office in January, his administration has pushed to curb DEI efforts that swelled in government and private businesses in recent years. He signed executive orders to end DEI programs across federal agencies and pull federal funding from recipients, including colleges, that promote DEI.
In his letter to Disney, Carr wrote that the FCC's enforcement arm would follow up with the company, which he suggested may have altered names of its DEI initiatives without changing policies.
"In recent years, Disney made DEI a key priority for the company's businesses and embedded explicit race- and gender-based criteria across its operations," he wrote. “Although your company recently made some changes to how it brands certain efforts, it is not clear that the underlying policies have changed in a fundamental manner – nor that practices complied with relevant FCC regulations."
Disney, in particular, has faced conservative backlash over what's been perceived as the company's "woke" priorities in filmmaking and other endeavors, including the recent remake of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," which opened this month with a disappointing box office take.