Verizon announced its $20 billion deal for Frontier in September 2024, in the final months of the Biden administration. In last week’s letter agreeing to end DEI practices, Verizon General Counsel Vandana Venkatesh wrote, “we recognize that the regulatory and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) has changed. The Supreme Court, the President’s Executive Orders, and federal mandates require changes in the way companies approach DEI issues moving forward.”
Verizon’s letter said that because of the “changing landscape,” the firm “has been evaluating its DEI-related programs, HR processes, supplier programs, training programs and materials, and other initiatives.” Among other changes, Verizon said it “will no longer have a team or any individual roles focused on DEI” and will reassign DEI-focused employees to “HR talent objectives.”
“Verizon recognizes that some DEI policies and practices could be associated with discrimination,” the letter said.
T-Mobile sent a similar letter to Carr on March 27, saying it “is fully committed to identifying and rooting out any policies and practices that enable such discrimination, whether in fulfillment of DEI or any other purpose,” and is thus “conducting a comprehensive review of its DEI policies, programs, and activities.” One day later, the FCC approved a T-Mobile joint venture to acquire fiber provider Lumos.
With the Verizon and T-Mobile deals approved, Carr has another opportunity to make demands on a major telecom company. On Friday, Charter announced a $34.5 billion merger with Cox that would make it the largest home Internet provider in the US, passing Comcast. Several Charter and Cox programs could be on the chopping block because of Carr’s animosity toward diversity initiatives.
This is just insanity. The problem with ISPs is not “there’s too much competition.”
What’s the endgame here? We just go back to Ma Bell, but this time with internet?
If getting rid of DEI is really about getting the best people for the job, then why aren’t Asian Americans, who usually get the highest GPA in schools and highest performance reviews in corporate and government jobs, dominating in all levels? Something ain’t white about that…
You say “best”, “highest performing” etc, but we asked a panel of immorally wealthy, elderly white male sex offenders who their ideal upper management employee was - and they unanimously suggested other immorally wealthy, elderly white male sex offenders, and suggested that employing anyone else is a DEI hire.
Or people willing to have their children for some reason…
The last sentence is in bucks bunny’s voice
many techbros think this unironically and do hire preferentially asian male employees. google famously got in trouble for this.
they probably still are discriminating. admin/managment are usually white people in general. Harvard got into trouble by DISCRIMINATING AGAINST ASIANS, because the college wasnt white enough.
Because they’re a minority. Statistically they are more overrepresented and overpaid than white people.
“We’ll only permit you to do this terrible thing if you also agree to do this other terrible thing that you already want to do.”
Oh fuck off on both sides of that headline. Sure, we’ll let you create more monopolistic ISP lock in, just so long as you’re not making any effort at not being a biggot while you do it.
You could argue that concentrating wealth is racist - and this just buffs how much more that harm will be
What’s the endgame here?
Trump gets richer.
We just go back to Ma Bell, but this time with internet?
If Trump gets richer while that happens? Yes.
All you have to do in order to become a super corporation, is stop pretending to care about people.
Not about technology
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Yea but it makes me feel uncomfortable /s
