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Byron Allen is the Founder/Chairman/CEO of Entertainment Studios, one of the largest privately-held media companies in the world, and happens to be African-American.
Comcast/NBCUniversal and the Trump Department of Justice are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to roll back civil rights. It started with a racial discrimination case I brought against Comcast. After losing twice in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Comcast went to the U.S. Supreme Court. And now they’ve brought the Trump Administration along to take their side in the highest court, putting at risk all Americans’ civil rights for their own financial gain.
Comcast/NBCUniversal, the largest cable operator and residential broadband provider in the U.S., enjoys the image of a progressive, diverse media company, holding itself out as an organization that stands up to discrimination and gives voice to progressive viewpoints and people of color. It’s the same company that brings Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Joy Reid and Lester Holt into your living room every day and unsparingly covers Donald Trump’s racist Twitter rants. If all you did was watch Comcast’s MSNBC and NBC programming, you would never know that the company is quietly attacking civil rights in the U.S. Supreme Court right now, in an effort to deny us a fair shot at doing business with the company and in the process, gutting the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and its prohibition against racial discrimination in contracting.
But that’s what they’re doing. Perverting a key provision of the law that protects minority businesses at a time when people of color are under heightened attack. All for what Comcast says is in its best financial interest. While it is not unusual for a big corporation to defend itself in court, what makes this case different is the stark contrast between how Comcast presents itself to its viewers and subscribers on the one hand, and how it presents itself to the U.S. Supreme Court on the other. The very same company whose anchors, commentators, and correspondents report on and excoriate Donald Trump for his racist statements, is arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that African Americans, Latinos, and every other racial minority should have a harder time winning relief under the Civil Rights Act. And now Comcast has teamed up with Donald Trump to keep African-Americans and other minorities from achieving economic inclusion and equality.
Comcast is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by my company, Entertainment Studios, which produces TV shows and owns TV networks for distribution on cable and satellite platforms, including channels in the comedy, entertainment, and news genres. Like all such companies, Entertainment Studios must sell its channels to the big Pay-TV distributors, like Comcast, who decide which channels to carry and under what terms. We allege that after multiple meetings with Comcast programming executives, and after demonstrating our channels’ competitive ratings, critical acclaim, and distribution by many of Comcast’s competitors (Verizon Fios, DIRECTV, AT&T/U-Verse, and DISH Network), Comcast declined to carry any Entertainment Studios channels and instead carried similarly-themed, lower quality channels that were not owned by minorities. We also allege that a Comcast executive explained the decision by saying “we don’t need any more Bob Johnsons” — a reference to the African- American billionaire founder of the cable network BET, suggesting that Comcast did not want to do a deal with my company because of my race. Based on this and other evidence that race was a motivating factor in Comcast’s decision not to carry my TV channels, my company sued under The Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, a federal statute that prohibits racial discrimination in contracting. The law was enacted to give the newly-freed slaves a pathway to economic inclusion. On June 10, 2019, petitioned by Comcast after it lost twice in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on the question of what evidence a plaintiff must show to establish a claim under the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
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