Digital Equity Advocates Rally to Restore Funds, Sustain Their Work

At 6:28 pm on May 20, Fallon Wilson, the founder and executive director of the #BlackTechFutures Research Institute, received an email from an official in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Apart from a standard salutation and signature, it contained a single-sentence message:

All Digital Equity Competitive and Digital Equity Capacity grant awards have been terminated, except for grants to Native Entities, which are pending further legal review.

Wilson, whose project was among those announced as recommended recipients of competitive grant awards under the Digital Equity Act (DEA) in a January 6 NTIA press release, was crestfallen.

The grant, which would have totaled nearly $12 million over four years to fund the #BlackTechFutures Research Institute with the goal of building public interest technology pathways and ecosystems in nine states as well as Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands, was intended to set up digital hubs with fast internet, computers, and shared workspaces; offer tech courses from beginner to advanced levels; host events to connect people with technology; and help participants find jobs, according to the NTIA release. The proposed program was built in partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and African American churches.

After spending years advocating on digital equity and inclusion issues, raising money to develop methodologically robust programs, and building the coalition that put together the competitive bid for the grant, the reversal cut deep.

“I felt sad, honestly. I wish I could find a more creative word,” Fallon told Tech Policy Press. “But I was sad, because it materialized for me what I’ve always known to be true, which is that our country does not love Black people.”

It wasn’t just that the funding was canceled; it was how the Trump administration went about it. The cancellation followed an announcement by President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform on May 8 that explicitly targeted the intent of programs like Wilson’s—a small subset of the broader DEA mandate—which were designed to specifically address the needs of the most vulnerable communities across the country:

I have spoken with my wonderful Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and we agree that the Biden/Harris so-called “Digital Equity Act” is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL. No more woke handouts based on race! The Digital Equity Program is a RACIST and ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway. I am ending this IMMEDIATELY, and saving Taxpayers BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!

The following day, the Commerce Department followed through with Trump’s order, sending emails to a first tranche of grant recipients indicating the government had determined that the awards issued under the Digital Equity Act “were created with, and administered using, impermissible and unconstitutional racial preferences.”

But according to interviews with experts on digital equity and inclusion policies and programs, the administration's stated rationale for the cancellation of DEA grants amounts to little more than empty claims of reverse discrimination. Trump’s abrupt and unilateral revocation of congressionally approved DEA grants, experts say, represents a severe setback for the nation’s efforts to bridge the digital divide and is itself a challenge to the Constitution. It will most significantly impact historically underrepresented and underserved communities, and disproportionately affect Black and brown Americans. And it undermines years of bipartisan work and investment aimed at achieving equity in connectivity and improving digital literacy, just at the beginning of a new period of technological innovation and disruption from artificial intelligence.

“The cancellation of DEA is emblematic of the way this administration is making policy choices that betray the bipartisan intention that drove these programs in the first place,” said Claudia Ruiz, senior civil rights advisor for UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. “This issue is becoming increasingly important because of the way we are implementing AI across the board. You can't champion 'AI innovation' and simultaneously keep millions of people cut off from the internet.”

Goals and timeline of the Digital Equity Act

Originally introduced by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the DEA was reintroduced in 2021 and passed as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that same year. Alongside the Broadband Equity and Deployment Act (BEAD), which sought to expand connectivity through supporting infrastructure, the $2.75 billion DEA measure aimed to address digital equity gaps by “encouraging the creation and implementation of comprehensive digital equity plans in all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico and supporting digital inclusion projects undertaken by groups, coalitions, and/or communities of interest,” according to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH). BEAD was supposed to ensure the connection; the DEA was intended to help people take advantage of it.

The DEA focused on eight groups that often face barriers to internet access and the acquisition of digital skills. These include:

• Low-income individuals, who are far less likely to have smartphones, broadband, or computers;
• Seniors, millions of whom still lack home internet;
• Incarcerated individuals, who generally have little access to digital tools or training.
• Veterans, among whom millions lack reliable broadband access.
• People with disabilities, who have lower computer ownership rates than those without disabilities.
• Individuals with language barriers, like English learners and those with low literacy.
• Racial and ethnic minorities, who face well-documented systemic barriers due to digital redlining and lower rates of device ownership.
• Rural residents, who remain less connected than those in suburban areas despite recent improvements.

Most Americans fall into at least one of these groups, with rural populations often being the largest of them in many states. To serve these groups, states received funds for planning and capacity building through NTIA, with the bulk of the allocation earmarked for the $1.44 billion Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program, and another $1.25 billion set aside for the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program.

According to a timeline published by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), which was among the organizations recommended for a competitive grant, it took two and a half years from the measure’s passage before NTIA opened capacity grants for the states, and a couple of more months before it opened competitive grants. The timeline meant the clock was tight headed into the 2024 election. NTIA was only able to announce awards in the competitive program just days before President Joe Biden left office.

Now, just as the Trump administration unveils its AI Action Plan to hasten the development and deployment of AI technologies, advocates are concerned that the populations left behind in the digital revolution are set to fall even further behind.

“You can’t get ready for AI if you are not even online,” said Jessica Dine, a policy analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute and Wireless Future Project. Dine has called for the development of a national “digital skills” framework, and wrote about Trump’s cancellation of DEA on Tech Policy Press in May. “The US does not have any coherent national digital skills strategy. We can’t become competitive in a world where people are not ready for AI, and not connected.”

“We end up building bridges to nowhere with BEAD, because if we are not able to get people to use this connectivity, all we’ve done is put wires in the ground,” said Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

The campaign against the Digital Equity Act

Perhaps the most substantial explanation of the basis for Republican opposition to the Digital Equity Act was made by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who issued a letter to then NTIA director Alan Davidson on November 21, 2024, shortly after the presidential election. In the letter, Cruz, then the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, claimed that NTIA consideration of the race of beneficiaries to the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program when issuing grant awards was “in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution,” claiming that it was “initiated during the Biden-Harris administration’s woke spending spree.”

But Cruz’s arguments and President Trump’s eventual claim that the DEA is “unconstitutional” and “racist” are beside the point, according to Gigi Sohn, executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband and a senior fellow at the Benton Institute.

“Just to be clear: the ‘cancellation’ of the DEA grants is a separation of powers issue,” Sohn told Tech Policy Press. “The President cannot cancel funding that Congress has authorized and appropriated, and the fact that Sen. Cruz and the President voiced their opinion on whether the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill has some sort of unconstitutional racial preference is not before any court.”

Advocates say the claim that the DEA is racist is just part of a broader campaign against any initiative to address historical injustices, and that it has the unfortunate effect of hurting a wide swath of Americans, including the President’s own supporters.

“President Trump’s claim that the ‘Digital Equity Act’ is ‘racist’ reflects his pattern of inverting the meaning of such terms, labeling efforts to address racial inequity as discriminatory themselves, making clear his administration’s intent to block or claw back initiatives aimed at correcting historical injustices that impact Black communities and other communities of color,” argued Alisa Valentin, broadband policy director at the nonprofit Public Knowledge, in a statement. (Valentin wrote about this issue on Tech Policy Press last month.) “The irony is that the weaponization of the word ‘equity’ will halt progress in closing the digital divide and will also severely impact his voter base of white Americans who live in rural areas in red states, including veterans and the elderly.”

Brandon Forester, an organizer on internet issues at the nonprofit MediaJustice, sees it in similar terms.

“The story is that just like we’ve seen with any public program, we’ve seen this narrative push to make these common sense things that are useful to everyone, they want to push them into the culture wars,” said Forester, whose recent projects include a documentary on the effects of the digital divide in rural Mississippi. “They try to racialize these universal programs to refigure a program to shovel money to corporations. Even though the attacks are racialized, the impacts are not. And it really affects rural areas, in particular, the areas that support Trump. It hurts all of us.”

Efforts to save the Digital Equity Act

Efforts to reverse the revocation of the DEA are underway both in court and in the court of public opinion. Following Trump’s May announcement, Democratic lawmakers were quick to denounce the revocation of funds. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) called Trump’s attack on the DEA “false and dangerous,” noting the legislation “helps seniors avoid online scams and expands telehealth in rural communities.” Sen. Murray, who originally sponsored the measure, said, “As usual the President has no idea what he’s talking about.” She said a key feature of the law is its flexible approach—allowing local governments, states, and Tribal communities to determine how best to use the funding.

“Let’s be clear, every time President Trump refuses to spend funding appropriated by Congress, he’s stealing from the American people,” said Sen. Murray.

The most promising avenue for legal recourse is through state Attorneys General, many of whom are engaged in lawfare with the administration over cuts initiated during the first six months of the Trump administration, including those initiated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). New Jersey is leading a multi-state lawsuit challenging what it calls the administration's illegal attempts to terminate critical federal funding to states. It says the Trump administration is misusing 2 C.F.R. § 200.340(a)(4), a regulation that allows termination when awards "no longer effectuate the program goals or agency priorities," wrongly interpreting this to mean the government can terminate grants based on newly identified "agency priorities" that didn't exist when the grants were originally awarded.

There is a question of whether the DEA, which isn’t explicitly mentioned, is covered in the lawsuit, but advocates are urging the plaintiffs to make this connection explicit. State Attorneys General appear to have clear standing, given that they were recipients of signed agreements and the clause in question is relevant to recipients of the DEA capacity awards. The Benton Institute recently summarized a range of examples of the state programs that were set to be funded under the DEA capacity grant program, and advocates in some states are appealing to state leaders to go to battle for them. For instance, a group of elected officials and advocates in Pennsylvania called on that state’s governor, Josh Shapiro, to defend the DEA, drawing the connection to the lawsuit and what the signatories say is a violation of “the separation of powers embedded in the Constitution and, specifically, the Appropriations clause, which gives Congress the exclusive power of the pursue.”

Likewise, civil society organizations continue to press their case to the administration and to elected officials.

“We are encouraging people to talk to their elected representatives,” said Angela Siefer, the executive director of NDIA, which was among the organizations recommended for a competitive grant award. Her organization has created advocacy materials, including a guide on “communicating the need” for the DEA. A letter organized by NDIA featuring signatures from “156 individuals leading 140 organizations serving communities from 39 states,” called on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Acting NTIA Administrator Adam Cassady to reinstate the full funding. The letter frames reinstatement as a "common-sense, fiscally smart, pro-growth decision" essential for workforce and business competitiveness.

Another letter, organized by the Hispanic Tech and Telecommunications Partnerships (HTTP), was addressed to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Cruz and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) as well as House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ). It called on the lawmakers “to support the restoration of the $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act Grant Program that complements the BEAD infrastructure investments.”

Chris Rodriguez, a policy advisor at HTTP, told Tech Policy Press he wants lawmakers to understand “how important the DEA grants were to accomplish the bipartisan legislative goals of BEAD. DEA is not its own thing, it’s part of the larger solution to bridging the digital divide.” HTTP has also created a toolkit for advocates.

What’s next for grantees

Organizations that were informed of the termination of their awards are struggling to pick up the pieces and figure out how to move forward. Some have reduced headcount, and most are looking for alternative sources of funding, including from state governments and philanthropy.

“Some of our affiliates have already reduced capacity and laid people off,” said NDIA’s Siefer. “A good number of organizations, including NDIA, had scaled up to be ready. They would have hired more digital navigators, more trainers, more operations staff. When the money didn’t come, they can’t maintain that, so we know many organizations have reduced their team sizes.” Siefer said NDIA is now down five positions from six months ago, and that across the field, the cuts represent a loss of expertise that will be difficult to rectify should the political winds change. “When we are ready to scale back up to do this work that is necessary to serve this country, we will have to start over,” said Siefer. “We’ve lost that expertise. We’ve lost enough to be painful.”

Even if DEA funding is restored, it will probably not help most of the competitive grant projects that were announced as recommended awardees in that January press release. NTIA has broad discretion over what it can do before a grant agreement is issued, which would make it difficult for organizations that did not complete paperwork to bring a lawsuit. Experts told Tech Policy Press that these organizations endured perhaps the worst possible outcome—their recognition resulted in public scrutiny, most of it negative, and they ended up with nothing to show for it and no path forward.

“They got thrown under the bus,” said Sohn.

Fallon Wilson says the disappointment and adversarial reactions her organization and staff have received after being named among the recommended awardees will not deter her from carrying on the work. Referencing a poem by Langston Hughes, she asks, What happens to a dream deferred?

“I have to switch up again to meet the goal of keeping the doors open,” Wilson told Tech Policy Press. “We continue as we have always continued, meeting high standards without the resources.”

She is buoyed by a recent recognition at the 2025 AI for Good Summit, which was organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency for digital technology. “Even if our government is not willing to invest in us, other countries recognize the value of our work.”

Wilson is hopeful that philanthropists, including foundations, will step in to fill the gap, but recognizes it is an uphill battle in the current environment. And she is concerned that even allies in the digital inclusion movement may not stand up for projects like hers in the current legal and political landscape. “The system critically and chronically underfunds Black-led groups,” she said.

“I will pivot, I will scale down, but the work continues.”