WASHINGTON -- Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council president Kim Keenan called on attendees at the 14th annual Access to Capital and Telecom Policy Conference here Wednesday (July 13) to help make important D.C. telecom issues understandable to the wider public they are affecting.

In opening remarks for an FCC luncheon, Keenan said she was deeply concerned about the spectrum auction and that, in terms of minority ownership, the media landscape following that auction could look like it did "100 years ago."

The two-day MMTC conference includes a panel session on the impact of the auction on diversity.

One concern is that the auction will reduce the number of channels -- including multicast channels -- owned by or programmed for minorities, given that the FCC is incentivizing broadcasters to give up spectrum.

Keenan said that while D.C. policymakers tend to have "wonky conversations with ourselves" about those issues, when she talks to groups outside Washington about issues like set-top boxes or network neutrality, their eyes "glaze over."

She suggested it is important to open those eyes to the digital future and called on her audience to help make those issues understandable and encourage dialogue.

"If we have a digital future that does not connect everyone, we don't have a digital future," she said, adding, "We don’t want it to be easier to be stopped by police than to get access to capital by people of color."

The Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council fired off a letter to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler Tuesday (July 12) saying the FCC should not face any legal impediment to extending its MVPD procurement regulations to broadcasting and all other communications sectors.

Congress in the 1992 Cable Act requires cable operators to encourage participation by minorities and women in all parts of their organizations. The MMTC wants that requirement to extend across the board.

The MMTC has made that request before, but the issue came up again at an FCC oversight hearing in the House Communications Subcommittee, where Wheeler said that extending the rule to other platforms could raise constitutional questions.

MMTC president Kim Keenan told Wheeler extending the requirement should be no problem.

"Supporters and opponents of affirmative action agree that if a regulation 'merely required stations to implement racially neutral recruiting and hiring programs, the equal protection guarantee would not be implicated," she said, adding: "Until your testimony today, no one has ever suggested that the rule presents any constitutional question."

In an exchange with Wheeler, Rep. Yvette Clarke, who urged the FCC to extend the rule, noted that the FCC's quadrennial review of media ownership rules had not included the MMTC proposal and asked Wheeler if he would commit to extending the rule across all platforms as a recognition of what she called self-evident industry convergence.

Wheeler said the FCC faces a "real challenge" under the Supreme Court's strict scrutiny standard of such policies under the Adarand decision and that if there was a way that challenge could be addressed and that threshold overcome, he was interested in hearing about it.

The MMTC was looking to answer that question.