Disney: Government Trying to Quash Free Speech

ABC has sued the FCC, alleging the agency’s efforts to challenge its broadcast licenses and regulate its talk show “The View” are illegal and an attempt to suppress speech the Trump administration finds objectionable.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., ABC—owned by Walt Disney Co.—said the administration has repeatedly attacked its journalism and programming, escalating into demands that ABC lose its broadcast licenses because of its speech. The network is seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to halt the FCC’s license-renewal process, along with a hearing before the D.C. Circuit Court.

“Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech—the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air. Over time, those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech,” ABC stated in the suit. It further argued that the FCC, acting for the administration, has “waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.” Disney said it had no alternative but to sue to avoid “total capitulation to the Administration’s demands,” warning that an internal FCC license-renewal hearing would almost certainly produce an adverse outcome.

The dispute began last year when FCC Chairman Brendan Carr opened a probe into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to determine whether they violated the agency’s rules against unlawful discrimination. ABC executives viewed the inquiry as a response to critical commentary on shows including “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “The View.” 

Tensions rose in April after Kimmel’s disparaging remarks about Trump and the president’s call for the host’s firing; the FCC then announced an early license-renewal review for ABC’s eight local stations.

Carr has maintained the review concerns DEI practices, not speech. The FCC said it will continue to follow the facts and the law, noting that all broadcasters must operate in the public interest and that it has examined claims of illegal DEI discrimination by Disney for more than a year. It described Disney’s lawsuit as part of a campaign of disinformation aimed at stopping the agency’s work.

Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights and a conservative activist with influence at the FCC, called the suit “a desperate attempt to short circuit the FCC’s investigation into its unlawful and discriminatory employment practices.”