Update (March 25, 2020): Television mogul and businessman Bryon Allen criticized a unanimous opinion Monday by the Supreme Court that dropped his $20 billion racial bias lawsuit with Comcast. SCOTUS ruled that the matter needs to be reviewed in a lower courtroom, The New York Times reports.

In a written statement, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of President Donald Trump's conservative appointees, wrote, "to prevail, a plaintiff (Allen) must initially plead and ultimately prove that, but for race, it would not have suffered."

Essentially, the decision favors Comcast and Charter Communications, which won't distribute Allen's stations. In order for Allen to win this case in a lower court, Allen's Entertainment Studios Network and the National Association of African American-Owned Media would have to prove that race played a factor in his networks being curbed by Comcast – which some say would be hard to do.

"This is a very bad day for our country," Allen told Yahoo in a statement. "Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has rendered a ruling that is harmful to the civil rights of millions of Americans."

“We will continue our fight by going to Congress and the presidential candidates to revise the statute to overcome this decision by the United States Supreme Court, which significantly diminishes our civil rights,” he added.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito said the case is heading "toward its inevitable doom," USA Today reports.

Comcast released a statement saying it was pleased and the ruling "restored certainty."

“We now hope that on remand the 9th Circuit will agree that the District Court properly applied that standard in dismissing Mr. Allen’s case three separate times for failing to state any claim,” the statement read.

Original story (September 27, 2019): Civil rights groups are calling for a boycott of media conglomerate Comcast because the corporation is seeking to change an important civil rights law at the U.S. Supreme Court in November.

Comcast and successful Black businessman Byron Allen have been battling in court for years over his claim the company refused to carry his channels because of his race. If Comcast wins the November 13 Supreme Court case, it would set a dangerous precedent, making it practically impossible to prove racial discrimination in any case.

“Comcast/NBCUniversal teaming up with Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to eviscerate a civil rights statute in the U.S. Supreme Court is shameful, evil and the epitome of American institutionalized racism,” Allen told CultureBanx.

In their fight against Byron Allen, Comcast and now the DOJ have asked SCOTUS for a new interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, specifically section 1981, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and ethnicity when making and enforcing contracts. pic.twitter.com/sKA8A5PlsN

— Los Angeles Urban League (@laurbanleague) August 29, 2019

Legal analysts were astonished last month when President Donald Trump, who spent considerable time Monday morning bashing Comcast on Twitter for MSNBC's coverage of his presidency, pushed the Justice Department to back the conglomerate in the lawsuit.

As bad as @CNN is, Comcast MSNBC is worse. Their ratings are also way down because they have lost all credibility. I believe their stories about me are not 93% negative, but actually 100% negative. They are incapable of saying anything positive, despite all of the great things…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 9, 2019

DOJ Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on August 15 supporting Comcast, claiming companies were allowed to decide on contracts based on race as long as it was not the sole factor confirming a decision.

Michael Foreman, the director of the Civil Rights Appellate Clinic at Penn State, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that by backing Comcast, the government was essentially saying it is "OK to discriminate based on race, just don’t make that the significant part of the decision. I’m sure [Trump’s] thinking is, Let’s make it harder to sue for discrimination claims, and he’s taking that position at the Supreme Court.”

Allen, CEO of Entertainment Studios, has been at war with Comcast since he filed a $20 billion lawsuit against them in 2015. According to Forbes, Allen owns 43 syndicated television series, eight cable networks, The Weather Channel and a movie studio.

He already has deals with Verizon FiOS, DirecTV, AT&T/U-Verse and Dish Network. Allen says Comcast repeatedly lowballed him in negotiations and disrespected him because of his race.

"We allege that after multiple meetings with Comcast programming executives and after demonstrating our channels’ competitive ratings, critical acclaim and distribution by many of Comcast’s competitors, Comcast declined to carry any Entertainment Studios channels and instead carried similarly themed, lower quality channels that were not owned by minorities," Allen wrote in an op-ed for Deadline last month.

"We also allege that a Comcast executive explained the decision by saying, 'we don’t need any more Bob Johnsons' — a reference to the African-American billionaire founder of the cable network BET, suggesting that Comcast did not want to do a deal with my company because of my race, " Allen continued.

The law in dispute is the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which gave Black people equal rights in contracts after the Civil War. If the Supreme Court rules in Comcast's favor, Black people would have to prove that race was the sole factor in why a company did not sign a contract.

"The Los Angeles Urban League (LAUL) is insisting that the US Supreme Court protect the rights of blacks and all Americans to do business without the vile presence of racism. [We] firmly [stand] by Entertainment Studios and its owner Byron Allen in his fight to uphold the 153-year-old civil rights act outlawing racism in business dealings," the Los Angeles Urban League said on August 29.

"In its petition to the Supreme Court, Comcast (with the support of the Department of Justice) is attempting to gut the Civil Rights Act of 1866, specifically section 1981, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and ethnicity when making and enforcing contracts," the LAUL continued.

Unfortunately, analysts have said the conservative Supreme Court is likely to rule in favor of Comcast and the Trump Administration, setting off a potentially devastating series of legal changes that will affect millions of Black Americans.

“If you choose to continue your attempt to eviscerate this civil rights law, we will have no choice but to call for a boycott of everything Comcast, effective immediately,” LAUL President and CEO Michael Lawson said in a statement.

Drexel University law professor David S. Cohen told The Inquirer "a law that requires someone to say that race is the only reason for discrimination will be very hard to prove. This is a [Supreme Court] that is very conservative and tends to rule against civil rights plaintiffs. So the Trump administration thinks it has a good chance of winning.”

Comcast won the case three times in lower courts, but Allen secured a win in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, forcing Comcast to petition the Supreme Court.

In interviews and op-eds this year, Allen has said Comcast is hiding behind its liberal-leaning shows while quietly squashing competitors in secret. The corporation was forced by the government to add four Black networks this year and ended up including AFRO, CLEO TV, Magic Johnson’s Aspire and Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Revolt.

"If all you did was watch Comcast’s MSNBC and NBC programming, you would never know that the company is quietly attacking civil rights in the U.S. Supreme Court right now, in an effort to deny us a fair shot at doing business with the company and, in the process, gutting the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and its prohibition against racial discrimination in contracting," Allen said in his op-ed.

"Comcast argues that an African American-owned business must show not only that the defendant considered race (which the statute forbids), but that the professed, hypothetical race-neutral reasons that could have motivated the defendant are false. In this case, that means Entertainment Studios would have to prove that race was the only reason Comcast refused to do business with it, not simply a major reason. The impact, of course, is to make it much, much harder for me and other Americans, today and in the future, to secure economic inclusion."

Political pressure on Comcast has risen as more groups come out in support of Allen and call for boycotts.

"Unfortunately, Comcast has chosen to use the U.S. Supreme Court to maximize its own profits. If Comcast thinks that we are wrong, it should go to trial and make its case. It should not challenge and put at risk all minorities’ ability to prove discrimination under the Civil Rights Act that has been in place for 153 years," Allen said.

"Coretta Scott King, the widow of the great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a friend of mine and I’ll never forget what she told me. She said, 'Byron, as African Americans in this country, we had four major challenges. Number one, end slavery. Number two, end Jim Crow. Number three, achieve civil rights. And number four, the real reason they killed my Martin, achieve economic inclusion,'" Allen added.

Civil-Rights-Law

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