Some unconstitutional regulations are like zombies: A court can put them down only to see them shamble back to life.
In a recent order, the Federal Communications Commission has resurrected a policy that many assumed was dead. From the 1980s until 1998, the FCC required television and radio broadcasters to classify all station employees, both full-time and part-time, by race or ethnicity and gender. These regulations pressured broadcasters to maintain a diverse workforce by threatening their licenses if they failed to reflect the right demographics. But in 1998, following Supreme Court decisions striking down other race-conscious government policies, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the FCC’s program as unconstitutional.
