Trump’s Cancellation of Digital Equity Act Programs Will Perpetuate the Digital Divide

Jessica Dine, policy analyst for New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) and OTI’s Wireless Future Project, wrote an op-ed published by Tech Policy Press on how the Trump administration’s cancellation of Digital Equity Act (DEA) programs—including the Competitive Grant Program, through which some initial awardees had already been promised funding—will perpetuate the U.S. digital divide.

If broadband is the infrastructure of the digital age, digital inclusion means empowering the population to use that infrastructure. It’s as if the Trump administration just invested billions of taxpayer funds in building roads while simultaneously shuttering and defunding DMVs, driving schools, and affordable car lots across the country....

Ending the DEA isn’t putting America first. It’s pulling America out of a critical global race and wasting taxpayer dollars in the process.