How ending the Digital Equity Act has disrupted programs to help people get online : NPR
President Trump ended the Digital Equity Act that funded equipment and services for communities and organizations underserved by high-speed Internet. We look at who is affected and how.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
For groups working to close the digital divide, the Trump administration’s decision not to release grant funds from the Digital Equity Act has resulted in the disruption or cancellation of programs that try to help people get and stay online. The $2.75 billion program was supposed to teach people how to do everything from using a health care portal to finding a job, but President Trump called the program racist and ended it. Nonprofits quickly realized that the grants they had won would not come. Shelly Brisbin of the Texas Standard has more.
JOSEPH ARIELA: So this page is what we call the home page. This is where you can kind of access everything you need to do on GroupMe. The main thing we can see is that here we have all the group chats that we are part of.
SHELLY BRISBIN, BYLINE: Joseph Ariela leads 20 seniors from the Asian American Resource Center in Austin, Texas, through a class on messaging. Arcelia Adams has a question.
ARCELIA ADAMS: What if you want to delete some of these messages?
BRISBIN: Adams, who is 76, is new to the online world. She says she wants to protect herself and avoid making mistakes with her smartphone. This intermediate internet course is exactly the type of training that the Digital Equity Act was designed to provide to seniors, veterans, and anyone with limited online skills. Even in Central Texas, where high tech is big business, service agencies were counting on the Digital Equity Act to reach more people.
JAIME CASTLEBERRY: A lot of Austin’s resources are not available outside of Austin areas, so we had to limit what we planned to provide.
BRISBIN: Jaime Castleberry is grants director at Goodwill Central Texas, which provides job training in 15 counties. The agency planned to spend $650,000 to expand digital training to rural areas.
SARA NICHOLS: We’ve seen gaps in the way people can access the internet. So these community partners are really connected to how the people they serve in the populations are struggling to connect and stay online.
BRISBIN: Sara Nichols is part of the Land of Sky Regional Council, a coalition of western North Carolina governments. The agency won a $7.7 million Digital Equity Act grant to expand training to underserved people in the region. Last fall, Hurricane Helene devastated the region and residents needed Internet access more than ever.
NICHOLS: So we spent a lot of the money that we had to dedicate those resources to the fall. Then we were really excited when we found out we were going to get this grant because it would help us continue to get our people back online.
BRISBIN: But the money never came. The Digital Equity Act promised $1.4 billion for public programs and $1.25 billion for nonprofits and collaborating groups. The law’s mention of racial minorities caught the White House’s attention, even though none of the approved grants focused on specific racial groups, nor excluded others. And the name of the law.
DREW GARNER: So basically the administration would look at any program, any law that had anything to do with equity and attack it.
BRISBIN: Drew Garner is director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, an advocacy group working to expand Internet access. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on its decision not to fund the approved grants.
The National Digital Inclusion Alliance filed suit against the Trump administration in October, challenging the end of its $25.7 million grant, and a coalition of more than 20 states sued the administration in June over the funds they were promised. These proceedings are ongoing.
For NPR News, I’m Shelly Brisbin in Austin.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit the terms of use and permissions pages on our website at www.npr.org for more information.
The accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. The text of the transcript may be edited to correct errors or match updates to the audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio recording.
