2018 Digital Inclusion Summit a Success/Breaking Net Neutrality Update

City of Portland Mayor, Ted Wheeler, proclaimed the week of May 7-11, 2018 as “Digital Inclusion Week”. The Portland Office for Community Technology (OCT) invited CUB’s Outreach Manager, Samuel Pastrick, to testify on CUB’s behalf to review the intersection of Digital Inclusion Network (DIN) work in the community and the development of good public policy. OCT leads the DIN – a consortium of nonprofit groups and public agencies working to improve digital equity and inclusion outcomes across the State – in coordination with Multnomah County Library.

The City Council’s proclamation kicked off the 2018 Digital Inclusion Summit, which the DIN group held on May 10 at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in downtown Portland. The summit proved a major success, and CUB is pleased to have helped coordinate the effort. Pastrick, who serves as CUB’s representative on the DIN, and Advocacy Director Janice Thompson attended from CUB’s staff.

The 2018 Digital Inclusion Summit was the culmination of almost four years of work on the part of the DIN, and it began with opening remarks from Mayor Wheeler. He made a point to acknowledge the impressive work of the DIN collaborative, but at the same time highlighted the need for further engagement from the city and community leadership around digital equity and inclusion. He also acknowledged that while the City of Portland and Multnomah County have generally surpassed expectations in rebounding from the Great Recession, far too many residents – particularly those unable to bridge the digital divide – have not realized the strong economic gains from the rebound.

The first panel of the day, “Building a Diverse, Local Workforce Pipeline”, immediately followed the Mayor’s remarks. Panel 2, “The Power of Digital Inclusion to Decrease Health Disparities” rounded out the morning, and attendees discussed the prompt: “What does digital equity and inclusion mean to you?” during lunch.

Vailey Oehlke, Director of Multnomah County Library, spoke passionately after lunch, echoing the central theme of the day, which can be summarized as: Indeed, we’ve come a long way as a city, county, and state – but certainly not far enough. There’s so much work left undone in the digital equity and inclusion space. Yet we should feel hopeful, optimistic even, that community groups and public agencies alike continue to elevate the conversation around these issues.

The third panel, “When (Policy) Worlds Collide: The Intersectionality of Federal, State, and Local Policies as they relate to Digital Equity and Inclusion”, which Pastrick organized, brought together an impressive group of policy leaders from across Oregon to discuss the intersection of digital equity and inclusion policy as it is today and what it will look like going forward. CUB would like to thank Grace Stratton, Jon Bartholomew, Kimberly McCullough, Mary Beth Henry, Pam Marsh, and Ricardo Lujan Valerio for their participation.

A major point of discussion on the policy panel was network neutrality. Oregon, of course, recently passed HB 4155, which gained political momentum in response to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vote to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order.

The never-ending saga that is the federal debate around net neutrality has taken a new twist: a group of U.S. Democratic Senators, joined by Oregon’s delegation Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, forced a successful floor vote to reverse the FCC repeal earlier today (May 16). It is worth noting that this is the same tact used by Republicans in 2017 to dismantle separate FCC rules related to Internet consumer privacy.

To be clear: Today’s vote sends an important signal, and has a laudable goal of undoing lousy decision-making on the part of the FCC. Yet in our increasingly fractured political climate, such a vote will almost certainly fail in the House of Representatives. And even if the House were to pass a same or similar measure (thereby reinstating Obama-era net neutrality rules), President Trump is expected to veto since endorsing net neutrality would alienate his handpicked FCC chair Ajit Pai – a former Verizon Counsel and staunch anti-regulatory, free market corporatist.

All this is to say that CUB is proud to have helped pass HB 4155, and anticipates further legislative action in Oregon during the 2019 session, this time focusing on customer-end data privacy.

Getting back to the 2018 Digital Inclusion Summit: Multnomah County Chair, Deborah Kafoury, closed out the day by focusing her remarks on policy and direct service efforts already underway, while likewise acknowledging the need for more work to address stark digital inequities in our communities. This sentiment, shared by Mayor Wheeler and MultCo Library Director Oehlke, signals a heightened interest on the part of city, county, and state leadership to seriously tackle the issue of Oregon’s digital divide. For our part, CUB will continue to occupy an important policy development role to improve digital equity and inclusion across Oregon.

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