February, 26 2015, 12:45pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Michele Setteducato, michele@fitzgibbonmedia.com, 732-614-3818
Madison Donzis, madison@fitzgibbonmedia.com, 210,488-6220
Civil Rights Group Applauds FCC, Calls New Rules Major Civil Rights Victory
ColorOfChange applauds the FCC's decision to reclassify Internet access as a telecommunications service.These new rules will protect net neutrality, which has been crucial to modern day civil rights movements and fights for equality. Though there is more work to be done, today is a monumental victory for civil rights, many years in the making.
WASHINGTON
ColorOfChange applauds the FCC's decision to reclassify Internet access as a telecommunications service.These new rules will protect net neutrality, which has been crucial to modern day civil rights movements and fights for equality. Though there is more work to be done, today is a monumental victory for civil rights, many years in the making.
Since 2010, the organization's members have taken more than a hundred thousand actions pressuring the FCC and Congress to protect the open Internet. ColorOfChange worked alongside organizations in the Voices for Internet Freedom coalition that recognize net neutrality as a key civil rights issue. ColorOfChange thanks the Center for Media Justice, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Free Press, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Presente.org, CREDO Action, all other net neutrality advocates and, most importantly, the millions of people across the country that stood up and made this their fight.
ColorOfChange began nearly ten years ago with a single email to a couple thousand friends and colleagues. Today, with more than one million members, the organization has spearheaded or contributed to many important civil rights victories. None of that work would have been be possible without an open Internet.
In response, Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org, issued the following statement:
"Today, we celebrate a major civil rights victory. Our ability to be heard, counted, and visible in this democracy now depends on an open Internet, because it allows voices and ideas to spread based on their quality - not the amount of money behind them. Without net neutrality, the voices of everyday people wouldn't have a chance.
"Throughout this fight -- as our members raised their voices to make it clear that net neutrality is essential for civil rights -- those who were being paid to carry water for the telecoms told us that this 'wasn't our issue,' and that we couldn't win. They claimed that big telecom companies, and telecom-funded legacy civil rights groups with tlike the National Action Network, Urban League, and NAACP, were too strong for us and our allies to face down. What they underestimated was the power of everyday people who used their voices strategically, empowered by the open Internet. We urge members of Congress to show they are on the side of communities, and not corporations, by supporting the FCC's decision to implement the strongest net neutrality rules possible."
Color Of Change is the nation's largest online racial justice organization. We help people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by over one million members, we move decision-makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America.
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While publicly pledging to cooperate with reform efforts, Witty has defended his company's care denials in private and urged his employees not to engage with media outlets in the aftermath of Thompson's murder.
Contrary to Witty's depiction of his company in his Times op-ed, UnitedHealth has historically been an aggressive opponent of reform efforts aimed at mitigating the harms of for-profit insurance and building public alternatives. The Leverreported in 2021 that UnitedHealth Group "held a webinar to pressure its rank-and-file employees to mobilize against efforts in Connecticut to create a state-level public health insurance option."
At the national level, UnitedHealth has spent over $5.8 million this year lobbying the federal government, according to OpenSecrets.
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