Urban League parrots telecom donors' net-neutrality stance
Last October, Marc Morial, the president of the National Urban League, wrote a column outlining his stand on the issue of “network neutrality” that aggravated activists but made providers of Internet services cheer.
Morial’s column in The Hill newspaper reflected a position on the issue — which is about whether all content sent over the Internet be treated equally — that was very much the same as that of David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest Internet service provider.
It’s not unusual that Comcast would make that argument, but it seemed a little odd that the Urban League — known for defending civil rights and fighting for economic equality for blacks — would take a position in a debate over such a seemingly arcane issue.
Critics say Morial’s decision to speak out had more to do with money and relationships than with Internet policy.
It turns out that Cohen has sat on the Urban League’s board of trustees since 2008. In addition, the Comcast Foundation, headed by Cohen, gave the National Urban League and some of its more than 100 affiliates almost $2 million from 2012 to 2013, according to an analysis of IRS tax filings by the Center for Public Integrity.
Cohen’s not the only representative of an Internet company to sit on the Urban League’s board.
Among its 33 trustees is Donna Epps, who manages Verizon Communications Inc.’s domestic public policy efforts. Epps formerly worked in the company’s federal regulatory group, which tracks government rules such as those that affect net neutrality. Verizon sued the Federal Communications Commission over its initial network neutrality rules issued in 2010 and won. Representing AT&T Inc. on NUL’s board is Charlene Lake, senior vice president of public affairs and chief sustainability officer.
The Verizon Foundation in 2012 and 2013 gave the Urban League nearly $590,000. AT&T’s foundation, however, gave nothing to the Urban League or any of its affiliates in 2012. AT&T didn’t provide a copy of its 2013 tax filing by deadline.
The Urban League says Cohen’s position and the donations from the foundation have had no bearing on its position on the network neutrality issue.
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Broadband. Investigating the political power of the information technology industry. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
