‘No extra woke handouts based mostly on race,’ the president said on social media, asserting the transfer.
President Donald Trump mentioned on Could 8 that he would finish the Digital Fairness Act as a part of his administration’s cost-cutting efforts, noting that the funding supplied below the Biden-era regulation was unlawful.
Trump mentioned he mentioned with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and so they agreed that the regulation, which former President Joe Biden signed in 2021 to shut the digital gaps by funding tasks aimed toward enhancing broadband entry and rising digital literacy, was unconstitutional.
In his Fact Social put up, Trump said that the Digital Fairness Act had been used to distribute “handouts based mostly on race,” although he didn’t present particulars to assist the declare.
“The Digital Fairness Program is a racist and unlawful $2.5 billion greenback giveaway,” he said. “I’m ending this instantly, and saving Taxpayers billions of {dollars}!”
The Digital Fairness Act supplied $2.75 billion in funding to the Nationwide Telecommunications and Info Administration (NTIA) to determine three grant packages that assist to develop high-speed web service entry to minority teams, individuals with disabilities, and communities in rural areas.
These grant packages embrace a state digital fairness planning grant, digital fairness capability grant, and digital fairness aggressive grant, in line with the NTIA’s web site.
It stays unclear whether or not the Division of Commerce has taken any steps following Trump’s choice. The division didn’t reply to a request for remark by publication time.
The transfer to eradicate the regulation has drawn criticism from digital fairness advocates. Angela Siefer, government director of the Nationwide Digital Inclusion Alliance, has referred to as on congressional leaders to reject Trump’s choice.
“This choice has no coverage rationale and makes no financial sense. Chopping this funding will deepen the divide and drive higher prices down the highway,” Siefer mentioned in an announcement.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who authored the Digital Fairness Act in 2019, denounced Trump’s transfer, saying that the funding supplied below the Digital Fairness Act was already accredited by Congress.
The Epoch Occasions reached out to the White Home for remark however didn’t obtain a response by publication time.
The choice to finish the Digital Fairness Act comes amid the Trump administration’s efforts to eradicate range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) packages from federal businesses and authorities initiatives.
Trump said in a Jan. 20 government order, issued after his inauguration, that the earlier administration had pressured “unlawful and immoral discrimination packages” throughout just about “all elements of the federal authorities” by DEI initiatives.
“The general public launch of those plans demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination. That ends as we speak,” Trump said in his order.
