AFT’s Weingarten on FCC’s Ending of Net Neutrality

WASHINGTON—Statement of AFT President Randi Weingarten on the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to end net neutrality:

“Today is a shameful day because the FCC’s decision will widen inequality, lessen opportunity and hurt kids. The FCC voted for profit over the public good.

“Think about the nurses who won’t be able to download medical images to treat patients, the university faculty and graduate employees denied access to non-commercial research, the teachers without access to free lesson sites like Share My Lesson that help kids, and the public employees destined to queue behind private businesses.

“Absolutely no one—besides massive corporations and their lobbyists—asked for this change. The FCC’s Republican appointees have ignored their job to put the public interest first. Equal access to the internet is a right, not a privilege extended only to the rich while the rest of America battles in the slow lane, a principle that three of five FCC members ignored.”