The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will investigate diversity efforts at the Walt Disney Company, the head of the US agency said on Friday.
Disney and its subsidiary ABC are being targeted as part of the Trump administration's efforts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes at government agencies and private companies, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a letter to the entertainment giant.
US President Donald Trump picked Carr to head the FCC.
"I am concerned that ABC and its parent company have been and may still be promoting invidious forms of DEI in a manner that does not comply with FCC regulations," Carr wrote in the letter, a copy of which he shared on X, formerly Twitter.
Disney made a priority of promoting race and gender diversity across its operations in recent years, and "apparently did so in a manner that infected many aspects of your company's decisions," Carr wrote in a letter addressed to chief executive Robert Iger.
Carr notified Comcast and NBCUniversal in February that they were targets of an investigation into their diversity and equality efforts, thanking Trump at the time for efforts to "root out the scourge of DEI."
Trump's assault on diversity across the United States government is dismantling decades of racial justice programmes. Delivering on a campaign promise, the Republican billionaire made it one of his first acts in office to terminate all federal government DEI programmes, which he said led to "illegal and immoral discrimination."
The American Civil Liberties Union says Trump's policies have taken a "'shock and awe' approach that upends longstanding, bipartisan federal policy meant to open doors that had been unfairly closed."
Today, Black Americans and other minorities continue to disproportionately face police violence, incarceration, poverty, homelessness and hate crimes, according to official data. AFP
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