27 Sep DEADLINE: Comcast Urged By NAACP To Stop “Attack” On Civil Rights Statute In $20B SCOTUS Battle With Byron Allen

By Dominic Patten

Locked in a U.S. Supreme Court bound $20 billion racial discrimination lawsuit with Bryon Allen’s Entertainment Studios, the alliance between Comcast and Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has now roused the scrutiny of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – and it might prove a bridge too far for the media giant.

“In several weeks, the Supreme Court will hear one of the most important civil rights cases to come before it this term,” the venerable 110-year old civil rights organization said in a statement Friday of the long fought legal action instigated by Allen.

“Comcast – the second largest broadcasting and cable television company in the world – is poised to take an unprecedented step,” the NAACP added. “Because of a dispute with a Black businessman, the company has urged the Supreme Court to roll back the crucial protections of one of the nation’s oldest civil rights laws, Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.”

“Although the NAACP takes no position on the underlying dispute, we have decided to take the lead on this issue,” the W.E.B. Du Bois, Moorfield Storey, and, Mary White Ovington, among others, founded group asserted. “We urge Comcast to cease its attack on Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866; a bedrock civil rights statute that has been in place for more than 150 years.” (READ THE FULL NAACP STATEMENT BELOW).

Squaring off against Allen the last several years, the MSNBC-owner received a gift wrapped present from the Trump administration on August 15 when the DOJ filed a brief that seeks to tighten the definitions of the Reconstruction Era statute in Comcast’s favor. A restriction that would be to Allen and Entertainment Studio’s detriment before Chief Justice John Roberts and the other members of the high court if adopted.

Having already been threatened with a boycott earlier this month by the the Los Angeles Urban League over the pitched legal battle, Comcast did not respond to request for comment from Deadline today.

With his filing of suits in 2015 and 2016, Allen’s POV has been that Comcast and Charter violated the Civil Rights Act after he unsuccessfully tried for years to get the cable sytems to carry his networks, which were available to millions of television viewers through rival distributors including Verizon, Dish and the now-AT&T-owned DirecTV.

The African-American executive said he has been rebuffed repeatedly and in his mega-bucks suit made it very clear that he believes race played a factor because Entertainment Studios is a fully minority owned entity.

Unsurprisingly, both Comcast and Charter in their respective responses and lawsuits have swore up and down that race was not a factor in the carriage deals or lack thereof.Also, unsurprisingly, Comcast and Charter have sought to have the suits tossed out of court. When they failed in that effort to end a case that they framed as a form of corporate expression, SCOTUS was the next venue – with a little help from their friends at the Justice Department.

The feds’ brief frames the statute to require that Entertainment Studios has to prove that race was not merely a motivating factor, as 9th Circuit interpreted the statute earlier this summer. Now, if the SCOTUS goes along for the ride, Allen’s lawyers could be required to prove that race was absolutely only reason that Comcast didn’t place the company’s channels on its distribution services and platforms.

Which is realistically a near impossible standard for Entertainment Studios to meet. Actually, it is a near impossible standard for any other person or entity availing themselves of the statute as it presently stands to meet if the DOJ version becomes the norm.

A hearing before the High Court is currently scheduled for November 13 on the now even more highly charge matter.

Allen and Entertainment Studios are represented in the case by a team from Miller Bardondess LLP and University of California Berkley School of Law’s Erwin Chemerinsky. Attorneys from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP are working for Comcast in the matter.

HERE IS THE FULL NAACP STATEMENT ON THE COMCAST & BYRON ALLEN DISPUTE’S RAMIFICATIONS FOR LONG HELD CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION:

In several weeks, the Supreme Court will hear one of the most important civil rights cases to come before it this term. Comcast – the second largest broadcasting and cable television company in the world – is poised to take an unprecedented step. Because of a dispute with a Black businessman, the company has urged the Supreme Court to roll back the crucial protections of one of the nation’s oldest civil rights laws, Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

For more than a century, Section 1981 has been used as an important tool to combat race discrimination, particularly for employment discrimination claimants. Throughout the NAACP’s history, standard-bearers of justice like Thurgood Marshall have harnessed the power of Section 1981 to fight various forms of discrimination. Yet now, in a situation that has become all too familiar during this era, an upcoming Supreme Court decision has the potential to reject these lessons of history by rolling back the clock on basic civil rights.

Although the NAACP takes no position on the underlying dispute, we have decided to take the lead on this issue. We urge Comcast to cease its attack on Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866; a bedrock civil rights statute that has been in place for more than 150 years.