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Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC

Supreme Court of the United States · 1990 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawEqual ProtectionAffirmative ActionBroadcast RegulationFifth Amendmentequal protection componentFCCminority ownership

Facts

The FCC adopted minority ownership policies to increase minority participation in broadcasting, based on its view that minority ownership would promote greater diversity of programming and viewpoints. The two challenged policies were a comparative licensing enhancement that gave a plus factor for minority ownership combined with active management participation, and a distress sale policy allowing certain stations facing revocation or renewal hearings to be transferred only to minority-controlled firms meeting FCC qualifications. In the Orlando licensing dispute, Rainbow received a substantial enhancement because it was 90 percent Hispanic owned, and the FCC ultimately awarded Rainbow the license over Metro. In the Hartford matter, the FCC approved Faith Center's distress sale of its station to Astroline, a minority applicant, over Shurberg's equal protection objection.

Issue

Do the FCC's minority ownership policies—the comparative licensing enhancement for minority ownership and the minority distress sale program—violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment? More specifically, what level of scrutiny applies to benign race-conscious measures mandated by Congress, and do these policies satisfy that standard?

Rule

Benign race-conscious measures mandated by Congress are constitutionally permissible even when not strictly remedial, so long as they serve important governmental objectives within the power of Congress and are substantially related to achievement of those objectives. In the broadcasting context, enhancing broadcast diversity is an important governmental objective, and Congress and the FCC may be given great weight on the empirical judgment that increased minority ownership furthers that objective.

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Congress directs the Federal Spectrum Agency to retain a rule giving extra weight in comparative licensing hearings for satellite-audio channels to applicants that are majority Native-owned, but only when those owners will participate in daily management. The agency explains that the rule is intended to increase the variety of viewpoints available to listeners nationwide, not to compensate identified victims of past discrimination.

A rejected non-Native applicant challenges the rule under the Fifth Amendment's equal protection component. Under the majority's approach, what is the most likely standard and result?

Explanation. The majority held that benign race-conscious measures mandated by Congress are judged by whether they serve important governmental objectives within Congress's power and are substantially related to those objectives. The measure need not be strictly remedial. A congressionally mandated preference tied to viewpoint diversity in a communications medium therefore receives intermediate, not strict, scrutiny under the majority's rule.