Former CEO Bob Iger spent years turning Disney into the most aggressively woke company in America.
The company he left behind is now fighting to keep its TV stations on the air.
The FCC just used one word to describe Disney's DEI response – and Disney should be terrified.
Disney's ABC License Renewal Was Due in 2028 – Until the FCC DEI Investigation Changed Everything
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr opened the investigation with a letter to then-CEO Bob Iger in March 2025. The formal Enforcement Bureau inquiry followed in June. By April 2026, Disney had submitted over 11,000 pages of documents across two rounds of production.
The FCC's response: not good enough.
One word: "disingenuous."
"The agency determined that Disney's responses to date have been deficient, disingenuous, and incomplete," Carr told the Daily Signal t. "The FCC will follow the facts and law wherever they lead."
Seven days after Disney's final April submission, the FCC ordered all eight ABC-owned stations to file early license renewals – stations not up for review until 2028 through 2031.
The DEI Discrimination the FCC Found Inside Disney's Own Documents
This is not a paperwork dispute. Carr's March 2025 letter to Iger spelled out exactly what concerned the agency.
Disney employees described racially segregated affinity groups and spaces inside company operations. Executives forced racial and identity quotas across multiple levels of production. It used race-based hiring databases and restricted fellowships to select demographic groups.
Disney publicly launched its "Reimagine Tomorrow" initiative – a mechanism, Carr said, for pushing its DEI agenda – while simultaneously telling the world it was stepping back from DEI.
Carr told Iger directly: "I want to ensure that Disney ends any and all discriminatory initiatives in substance, not just name."
The Communications Act and FCC regulations prohibit broadcasters from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, or gender. Disney holds federal broadcast licenses.
A broadcaster running discriminatory internal practices while holding those licenses has a public interest problem – and the FCC is now treating it like one.
Disney Called the FCC Unconstitutional – Brendan Carr Cited the Supreme Court
Disney filed its license renewal applications "under protest" – calling the FCC's action "unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional."
WABC-TV's legal filing argued the FCC "had not demanded early renewal in over five decades" and claimed the order existed solely to punish the station for speech the government didn't like.
Carr didn't flinch.
"No broadcaster has a 'right' to use the public spectrum," the FCC fired back. The agency cited Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC – a 1969 Supreme Court ruling confirming that FCC regulatory action "enhances rather than abridges" First Amendment protections.
Disney doesn't own those broadcast frequencies. The American public does. Disney has been permitted to use them in exchange for operating in the public interest.
"If a broadcaster engaged in illegal DEI discrimination, the FCC will hold them accountable," Carr said Friday.
What the FCC's DEI Crackdown on Disney Actually Means for ABC's Broadcast Licenses
The racially segregated spaces, the production quotas, the restricted fellowships – none of that was a bold corporate vision. It was illegal race discrimination with a marketing budget.
The federal laws that banned discriminatory hiring in 1965 still apply today. The direction of the discrimination does not change the law.
Disney submitted 11,000 pages hoping volume would substitute for compliance. The FCC called it disingenuous and sent the license renewal clock spinning forward by two years.
Trump's executive orders directed every federal agency to apply nondiscrimination laws without carve-outs for DEI. Carr is doing exactly that.
The Disney that Bob Iger built is now facing the bill for every segregated space, every quota, every race-based database he put in place.
Now the FCC made clear it doesn't care how many pages Disney sends – the investigation goes wherever the facts lead.
Sources:
- Tyler O'Neil, "FCC Chair Brendan Carr Sets Record Straight on Disney," The Daily Signal, May 29, 2026.
- "FCC Reviews Disney, ABC Broadcast Licenses over 'Unlawful Discrimination,'" Breitbart, April 28, 2026.
- "FCC Details Disney's History of Alleged Discrimination Based on Race, Gender, Other Protected Classes," Breitbart, May 29, 2026.
- "FCC Opens Investigation Into Disney for Going 'All In' on DEI," Fox News/Yahoo News, March 2025.
- Brendan Carr, Letter to Bob Iger, Federal Communications Commission, March 25, 2025.
