The Trump Administration has finally dropped its hammer on the Digital Equity Act.
Late last Friday, state and territorial broadband offices, and at least some of the 65 announced winners of national Digital Equity Competitive Grant awards (those with contracts already signed, perhaps others), got the word via emails from the U.S. Commerce Department: Your award has been terminated.
This followed a Thursday post by President Trump on Truth Social which called the DEA “totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL”, “woke handouts based on race” and “a RACIST and ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION giveaway”.
The idea that DEA funding is racially discriminatory, and therefore illegal/unconstitutional, originated last November in a letter from Texas Senator Ted Cruz to Assistant Secretary of Commerce Alan Davidson objecting to the Competitive Grant Program’s listing of “individuals who are members of a racial or ethnic minority group” as one of eight “covered groups”, at least one of which would have to be served to receive funding. Of course this list of covered groups comes straight from the Act itself and also includes veterans, rural residents, senior citizens, people with disabilities, people learning English or with limited English literacy, and people with household incomes below 150% of poverty. Nonetheless, Cruz (whose senior technology staffer has been nominated to take over Davidson’s job) argued that any consideration of race in awarding Federal funds is a “racial classification” that violates the Equal Protection Clause — and therefore the Competitive Grant Program should immediately “halt issuing Program grants”.
Trump and Commerce Secretary Lutnick have built on Cruz’ tortured logic to construct a full-fantasy woke version of the DEA, as a convenient MAGAverse rationale to kill the real thing.
Friday’s termination emails repeat the Truth Social version of this rationale in slightly calmer language:
That’s from the notice received by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) cancelling its Competitive Grant Program award. Emails received by states and territories cancelling their Digital Equity Capacity Grants use similar language about that program.
Notice that Trump and Lutnick aren’t claiming racism, discrimination or woke-ism by any grant award recipients. They’re saying the Commerce Department’s program rules are unconstitutional because of a built-in racial preference in its list of covered populations, which is copied verbatim, as required, from the Act itself. So states and organizations that won grants by following those rules — even if their proposals were entirely for services to other covered groups, such as veterans or seniors or farm families — are now getting them yanked back.
The Commerce Department’s actions threaten at least $35 million in already-awarded grants for digital navigation and training, affordable devices and Internet adoption support for Ohioans. That amount includes:
- State of Ohio (BroadbandOhio), $23 million — the state’s current Digital Equity Capacity Grant, awarded in November. $12 miliion has been allocated to fund competitive grants to community digital inclusion projects around the state, with an initial application deadline of April 11. BroadbandOhio is also seeking contractors to develop statewide strategies for affordable computers, digital inclusion services in state correctional facilities, and digital navigator program support.
- United Way of Greater Cincinnati, $8.8 million — a national Digital Equity Competitive Grant supporting Learning Hubs and Digital Navigators.
- Jewish Family Services (Columbus) and Northwest Ohio Community Action Commission (Defiance), $1.7 million each. JFS and NOCAC are among about a dozen local digital navigator programs that partnered with NDIA in a successful national Competitive Grant proposal.
There are at least three other Competitive Grant awardees whose project descriptions promise some unspecified activity or impact in Ohio. In addition, more than $300 million of the Competitive Grant Program’s 2024-25 appropriated funding has yet to be awarded, with a number of Ohio proposals still outstanding. And under the existing Infrastructure Act appropriations, both the State Capacity Grant Program and the national Competitive Grant Program have more money coming in 2026.
So in theory, Ohio could reasonably expect to receive more Digital Equity Act dollars — if the whole thing survives Trump’s attack.
Will these grant terminations stick? Is the Digital Equity Act dead?
With $1.4 billion in Digital Equity Capacity Grants for states and territories at stake, not to mention more than $600 million in already-announced Digital Equity Competitive Grants involving hundreds of communities, the White House’s attempt to cancel the Digital Equity Act is certainly headed for court.
There’s also likely to be significant pushback from Congress — possibly from both sides of the aisle. (How will Senator Murkowski react to Alaska’s loss of $30 million in Competitive Grant awards? What can we expect from Senator Husted, who as Lieutenant Governor was the public face of BroadbandOhio until a few months ago?)
But of course the White House attack on the DEA is just part of a much larger struggle in which the efficacy of courts and Congress remains questionable. Trump has now personally condemned the DEA in the strongest terms. It’s publicly targeted for elimination by the Commerce Secretary, whose department “owns” it. The Commerce Department agency that administers DEA’s programs — the National Telecommunications and Information Administration — is about to have a new Administrator, Arielle Roth, whose former boss and patron in the Senate kicked off the attack on those programs in November with a letter that Roth herself, as Cruz’ main technology staffer, might well have drafted. Both Lutnick and Roth have other broadband policy goals on their front burners, starting with “BEAD reform” and spectrum.
So reversing Friday’s grant terminations and getting the Digital Equity Act’s programs back on track, as they were intended by Congress in 2021, will be a very heavy lift, even with successful litigation and strong Congressional support.
We’ll see in the next day or two how many state governments are ready to make a fight of it. On the community side, Angela Siefer of NDIA says: “This is not over. NDIA is exploring all options.”
Stay tuned.