America is the land of opportunity, so the government should stop discriminating on the basis of race. The Supreme Court reiterated that principle just last year. In a pair of cases brought by the Students for Fair Admissions, the Supreme Court struck down racially discriminatory admissions programs at Harvard and UNC. The principles behind those decisions extend beyond higher education. The government has no license to treat us differently because of race. Instead, the Constitution and civil rights laws protect the equal rights of all individuals to pursue their version of the American dream.
Not every government official got the memo. Federal, state, and local laws continue to discriminate at the expense of individual opportunity in a myriad of fields such as government contracting, government boards, public education, and so on.
But Americans are fighting back. One case making its way through the legal system was filed by Soo Kim, the Korean-American owner of Standard General. In 2022, Standard General won a public bidding auction to buy Tegna—a publicly traded spinoff of the media giant Gannett—and its over 60 television stations.
The multi-billion-dollar deal would have been a boon for everyone involved. It would have created tremendous value for Tegna shareholders and provided significant benefits to newsroom staff in the form of an increased budget and a guarantee of three years of job security. Standard Media’s CEO, Nashville-based Deb McDermott, was in line to become the only female CEO of any top 10 television group.
But politics and racial discrimination derailed the deal. Mr. Kim alleges that powerful politicians who pocket large checks from his competitors put the kibosh on his purchase. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel expressing “concerns” over Standard General’s acquisition of Tegna. Senator Elizabeth Warren followed suit by urging Rosenworcel to use the agency’s “full statutory authority to block” the deal. The FCC did just that. The FCC effectively killed the deal by referring it to a hearing before an administrative law judge. A hearing would take up to two years, so the FCC’s unprecedented referral ran out the clock on Standard General’s deal to finance its purchase.
The FCC’s decision to nix the deal was prompted by its fixation on racial balancing. The agency, professing a commitment to “advancing equity,” tracks broadcast ownership by the race of broadcast owners and makes race a factor in deciding whether to approve broadcast license transfers. Yet, as we have seen time and again, a system obsessed with race produces no winners and many losers. Mr. Kim was decried as a “shadowy foreign investor” despite being a United States citizen who grew up in Queens. As a five-year-old, Mr. Kim immigrated with his parents from South Korea to pursue the American dream. That pursuit is something that all should celebrate, not use government force to destroy.
In my work as a public interest attorney, I’ve represented scores of Americans free-of-charge in their pursuit of the American dream. Those Americans want to earn their living by starting businesses, running food trucks, and writing stories—just to name a few examples. They often face government barriers like unreasonable licensing requirements, regulatory red tape, and (increasingly) racial discrimination.
Fortunately, the Constitution protects the rights of every American. Its protections do not wax and wane depending on our membership in an immutable group. Rather, it requires the government to treat us as individuals—each with the equal and unalienable right to pursue the American dream. That is America’s promise, and we should hope that Mr. Kim’s case brings us closer to fulfilling it.
