Digital inclusion organizations are reeling after the Trump administration announced the Digital Equity Act grant programs, embedded in the bipartisan infrastructure law, was being cancelled months after federal grants had already been reviewed and awarded.
On Friday evening, President Trump announced via a Truth Social post that he was cancelling the Digital Equity Act, claiming it to be “unconstitutional” and “racist,” and, therefore, “ending this immediately.” Yesterday, state broadband offices began receiving letters from NTIA, the federal agency administering the program, to formally announce funding was being terminated.
As news began to trickle out, many of those working on these issues across the nation had more questions than answers as they scrambled to process a mix of confusion and frustration, especially mindful of the fact that the Digital Equity Act barely touches on the subject of race. Although Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately left on the wrong side of the digital divide, only one of the of eight “covered populations” identified by Congress in the law even mentions race.
The Digital Equity Act, passed as part of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, was focused on expanding access to devices and training primarily to ensure everyone could - and would - take advantage of Internet access networks that Congress authorized building at a cost of more than $40 billion in the most recent of many such programs.
Congress zeroed in on “covered populations” – which includes rural communities (many of whom overwhelmingly voted for President Trump), seniors, and veterans. Those demographic groups were identified in the Act because, if universal broadband Internet access is going to become a reality, it will require that digital skills training programs and a variety of other broadband adoption initiatives be targeted at pockets of the population that studies, census figures, and surveys have repeatedly shown make up the bulk of those not using it today.
The Maine Problem(s) With the Decree
The Wiscasset, Maine-based National Digital Equity Center was one of 65 organizations and public entities NTIA announced in January had been approved to receive funds under the agency’s national competitive grant program established by the Digital Equity Act.
But, this week, in the wake of news that the program was being “terminated,” the Center’s Founder and Executive Director Susan Corbett said she was “saddened by this news. We have been offering digital opportunities to Maine residents since 2018, and have provided digital skills training to over 40,000 participants.”
Speaking to ILSR, Corbett pointed to what’s missed by those not familiar with the scope of the program nor the breadth of the fallout.
“The thing I think is important is that with ‘covered populations’ most of the time many fall under more than one category. In Maine, 89 percent (of residents) fall under what the Digital Equity Act identifies as ‘covered populations’ and that’s for two reasons: one is we are a rural state and second we have a large older population,” Corbett said.
Corbett said the Digital Equity Center had been approved by NTIA for a $13.7 million grant to help fund the Maine Digital Opportunity Initiative – a statewide partnership that includes the National Digital Equity Center, Maine State Library, the Maine Community College System, the Maine Adult Education Association, Medical Care Development, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), and 13 regional partners across the state to “expand and strengthen Maine’s digital equity ecosystem.”
The initiative, Corbett noted, is meant to address five primary barriers to broadband adoption in Maine that were found after the state conducted an extensive survey in putting together its digital equity plan as mandated by Congress.
The barriers that were identified:
- Lack of affordable broadband options as 47 percent of respondents reported difficulty paying for their Internet service.
- Lack of online accessibility and inclusivity of public resources and services for most of the state’s “covered populations” with only 26 percent of low-income respondents saying their search for government information or services met their needs.
- Digital literacy as “covered populations” reported they had little confidence in their digital skills.
- 93 percent of respondents said they were “concerned” or “very concerned” about Internet safety, online privacy and cybersecurity.
- Nearly 30 percent of Maine’s “covered populations” said they didn’t have adequate access to devices and technical support.
All told, Corbett said, the grant (now apparently rescinded) was going to be used to establish a Digital Navigator Corps that would place a digital navigator in each of Maine’s 16 counties and one in each of the state’s five Tribal areas; expand digital skills training and create pathways to Higher Education offering over 45 free digital skill-building courses with seven instructors and the distribution of between 800 and 1,000 no-cost devices annually to income eligible households; expand the capacity of Maine’s libraries to provide digital skills resources; and to integrate a telehealth initiative in partnership with the Northeast Telehealth Resource Center to conduct telehealth assessments, develop strategic plans with key stakeholder groups, and deliver telehealth training and technical assistance.
“Think about something like two-factor authentication. Go and ask most 70 year olds what that is and see what they say,” Corbett said. “Ultimately, you want everyone to participate in the digital economy. But you need to teach people how to do that, and do it safely.”
Even beyond the importance of digital skills training and other broadband adoption initiatives directed mostly at “covered populations,” Corbett said, the Digital Equity Act is vital, especially as the federal government is making the single-largest investment in broadband infrastructure in US history.
The funding, she added, goes hand-in-hand with the $42.5 billion BEAD program – the biggest bucket of funds in the infrastructure law to build-out broadband infrastructure in primarily rural areas.
“I used to own a small ISP (Internet service provider) in rural Maine and I can tell you take-rates are important for return on investment. You want people to be able to get service, especially if you’re spending money on infrastructure. If the federal government is going to invest public money in broadband infrastructure, that has to be maintained, and you can only do that if you have subscribers on the network.”
Digital Access Advocates in North Carolina Hit With Political Hurricane
In western North Carolina, where the Land of Sky Regional Council is working with 13 partners across 18 counties to close the digital divide, news that the Digital Equity Act was declared terminated by Presidential decree added insult to injury.
“It affects us heavily,” the Council's Energy & Economic Development Manager Sara Nichols told ILSR.
The multi-county regional government planning and development organization had been awarded a $7.7 million NTIA grant to fund a variety of initiatives, which includes the creation of computer labs in mostly rural community centers; providing targeted digital navigation support for older adults; partnering with NC Business of Education, Inc to teach K-12 students how to repair and update devices; operating and staffing a mobile computer lab known as the “Digi-Bus” to bring library and digital navigator services to rural communities and farmers; and to provide digital skills training to help improve telehealth access for veterans, one of the eight “covered populations” critics breeze over in attacking the law as “woke DEI.”
“We suffered Hurricane Helene. And communication technology is a big part of our need to recover. We had devices washed away and we had to rally and organize quickly, setting up public Wi-Fi. We had to do years of work in literally weeks in the aftermath,” Nichols said.
Needless to say, the regional planning and development council was thrilled when they learned they were one of the 65 applicants initially approved for a grant. The nearly $8 million grant award, first announced (though not yet allocated), was a bit of welcome relief, especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
“We’ve got a new level of poverty and homelessness,” she said, adding how she sees the Digital Equity Act as being fundamentally about “helping people find employment and a job. The Internet and technology is at the core of that.”
Nichols also noted how baffling it was that a key constituency of the Trump administration was just being tossed into the political winds.
“We are in a predominantly rural area and we looked at who in our region was most underserved (and) it’s folks that historically don’t have access to infrastructure – but also many who don’t have the same understanding of the importance,” Nichols said.
“If the funding doesn’t move forward, it would be a huge slam to rural communities. We (as a nation) have continued to give rural communities sub par access, like they’re not worth the investment. But without it, you lose access to things like banking, healthcare, and jobs. To not give them all the tools a healthy broadband ecosystem offers is a slam to rural communities once again.”
Nichols used the word ‘if” for a reason. She, like just about everyone who works on Internet access issues expects (or hopes) a legal challenge will be filed – with cautious optimism that the courts will rule that a President does not have the authority to overturn an existing law passed by Congress, to say nothing of the fact that it violates the agreements state’s have signed with the federal government in anticipation of the funds.
For Nichols’ part, she is looking to state leaders to lead the charge because “Congress appropriated this money and states will have more grounds than local organizations” to fight it.
*This is the first of several articles exploring what happens next after President Trump’s Administration has claimed to cancel a federal program duly established by Congress and signed by the previous President.
Header image of veteran getting retirement services courtesy of NARA & DVIDS Public Domain, creative commons, Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal
Inline graphic of "covered populations" in Digital Equity Act courtesy of NTIA
Seniors in computer class courtesy of PXHere, Creative Commons, Public Domain List
Inline image of Hurricane Helene damage in Asheville NC courtesy of X on Flickr, Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic
Inline image of US Treasury building courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons, Attribution 4.0 International
