The Supreme Court Could Cut Off Classroom Internet Connections
From Forbes.com
For almost thirty years, the E-Rate program has made internet connectivity available to schools and libraries across the country. Now the Supreme Court could decide to end that program.
The program was authorized as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, with the FCC deciding to fund E-Rate through the pool of money collected from service providers for the Universal Service Fund. The idea was to increase internet connectivity for classrooms and libraries, particularly those serving low-income or rural populations. The USF also funds connectivity services for rural health care, remote communities, and low-income households.
The effect was immediate. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the requests for E-Rate funding, amounting to $2,02 billion, outstripped the program funding immediately. The percentage of public schools with internet access, according to a U.S. Department of Education survey, went from 35% in 1994 to 95% in 1999. Over that same period, internet access in actual classrooms went from 3% to 63%.
The program has allowed schools that could not have managed internet connectivity for their students, and that can be transformative (I taught at one such school).
The challenge to that program comes from Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers’ Research. It’s an appeal of a decision from the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that found in favor of Consumers’ Research, a DC-based conservative advocacy group. The argument is laid out simply in the first paragraph of the decision:
In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress delegated its taxing power to the Federal Communications Commission. FCC then subdelegated the taxing power to a private corporation. That private corporation, in turn, relied on for-profit telecommunications companies to determine how much American citizens would be forced to pay for the “universal service” tax that appears on cell phone bills across the Nation. We hold this misbegotten tax violates Article I, § 1 of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court has heard the case, which brought out a host of amicus briefs.