Cruz Criticizes CPB-Funded Independent TV Service on Diversity Development Fund

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, raised concerns Thursday with the CPB-funded Independent Television Service (ITVS) about its Diversity Development Fund, which provides grants of up to $35,000 to filmmakers of color to develop documentaries for public media. ITVS reports it has funded 156 films via the diversity fund. “Because white filmmakers are facially ineligible for this seed money, the fund runs afoul of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866,” Cruz told ITVS CEO Carrie Lozano in a letter. “I therefore urge you to remove race as an eligibility criterion for” DDF. ITVS “can surely pursue its mandate to ‘expand the diversity and innovativeness’ of public programming without violating the law,” Cruz said. “Presumably, the goal of this racially exclusive funding opportunity is to further CPB’s directive to aid ‘producers of programs addressing the needs and interests of minorities.’ But programming need not be produced exclusively by minorities to address the needs and interests of minorities. Furthermore, ITVS’s requirement that an applicant ‘[i]dentify as a person of color’ violates federal law.” The fund may also “discriminate based on political ideology,” he said: “The ITVS website features an ‘Impact’ page demonstrating how its documentaries ‘inspir[e] audiences to take action’ on politically charged issues like criminal justice reform. These documentaries overwhelmingly reflect a liberal worldview” and “ITVS funds hardly any documentaries from a conservative perspective. A public organization that costs American taxpayers $17 million a year should not be a vehicle for left-wing agitprop.” Cruz wants Lozano to tell him by Feb. 15 whether ITVS will remove "race as an eligibility criterion” for DDF grants and detail how much money the fund has received since 2014. In addition, he wants more information about how ITVS will inject “objectivity and balance” as it decides on content befitting an entity receiving CPB funding. ITVS didn’t immediately comment. Cruz objected in December to CPB rules for member stations’ diverse workforce policies (see 2312110067). CPB CEO Patricia Harrison countered that the organization’s current and former diversity policies for Community Service Grants recipients “do not require any unlawful employment preferences or quotas” and are “no more discriminatory than the policies for federal agencies with which CPB, as a private corporation, voluntarily complies.”