The TL;DR is: The court says it's ok to say "no" to accepting a channel. BUT not if it was because of racism.
The trial will focus on whether they can prove it was racism, or some other reason.
I hope YouTube is sued next, for pulling “right wing” programming.
Completely ludicrous
Honestly, anything that goes against the interests of these two companies, in particular, I am fine with. I hold an unhealthy resentment towards both of them.
"In addition to recounting Entertainment Studios' failed negotiations with Charter, Plaintiffs' amended complaint also included direct evidence of racial bias. In one instance, [Charter VP of programming Allan] Singer allegedly approached an African-American protest group outside Charter's headquarters, told them "to get off of welfare," and accused them of looking for a "handout." Plaintiffs asserted that, after informing Charter of these allegations, it announced that Singer was leaving the company. In another alleged instance, Entertainment Studios' owner, Allen, attempted to talk with Charter's CEO, [Tom] Rutledge, at an industry event; Rutledge refused to engage, referring to Allen as "Boy" and telling Allen that he needed to change his behavior. Plaintiffs suggested that these incidents were illustrative of Charter's institutional racism, noting also that the cable operator had historically refused to carry African-American-owned channels and, prior to its merger with Time Warner Cable, had a board of directors composed only of white men. The amended complaint further alleged that Charter's recently pronounced commitments to diversity were merely illusory efforts to placate the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)."
- The evidence of discrimination is extremely weak. None the things mentioned ("get off of welfare", "handout", "boy", "change his behavior") is necessarily racism. But the result is not surprising, since the ruling is from the 9th Circuit.
A side note. This kind of law suit properly will increase implicit racial bias, because it is trying to reenforce the idea that welfare and bad behavior only or strongly links to African Americans. See: Even completing a Race Implicit Association Test increases implicit racial bias: https://psyarxiv.com/vxsj7/
Interesting, I looked at the channels they offer and I couldn't see any reason why they would refuse to carry the network, none of their programming seems in poor taste or extreme.