Broadcasters Note Recent Ruling Against SEC in EEO Case
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should apply to the FCC’s collection of workforce demographic data from broadcasters the same reasoning it used in a recent ruling against the SEC, said the National Religious Broadcasters and other petitioners in…
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a Tuesday filing in docket 24-60219. On Dec. 11, the 5th Circuit ruled en banc in Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment v. SEC that the agency lacked the authority to require companies to publicly disclose information about the race, gender and sexual orientation of their boards of directors. In that ruling, the court said the SEC was “stepping outside of its normal regulatory domain” with the requirement. “If Congress had granted a diversity mandate to any agency (an altogether unclear assumption), we would have expected Congress to give it to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or even the Department of Justice,” said the 5th Circuit in the en banc opinion. The FCC’s order requiring broadcasters to submit employee demographic data is a similar overreach, said NRB and fellow petitioners the Texas Association of Broadcasters and the American Family Association.