Broadband: The 21st Century Highway for Human Rights
By Lt. Governor Molly Gray
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck last year, Vermont high school students Noah and Rory, alongside millions of other American students, were required to remote learn. Due to poor internet access in their home just 13 miles from the Vermont State House in Montpelier, they took matters into their own hands. With help from their parents who were also required to work remotely, they cut the legs off an old toddler table and a couple of chairs and created a ‘classroom’ in the back of their car. Every morning, no matter the weather, they parked outside the local elementary school and went about their days, crammed in the back of a 2007 Honda Element.
Noah and Rory’s story, while extraordinary, is not unique. With most schools operating at least partially online, the pandemic has disproportionately impacted rural, low-income, and BIPOC students for whom broadband was already inaccessible, unaffordable or both. New data shows that nationwide, a staggering 25 percent of students lack access to the internet. Sit with that number for a moment; in other words, at least a quarter of our students have been unable to learn because they do not have sufficient broadband. Our nation’s digital divide has turned into an education divide and although students may be returning to the classroom after this pandemic, online learning is here to stay in some form.
For the 21 million Americans, including the nearly 60,000 Vermont homes and businesses without high-speed internet or broadband, every day of this pandemic has been a day without adequate access to public education, health care, economic opportunity, and human connection.
This pandemic has made it abundantly clear: broadband should no longer be considered a luxury but instead, a public good no different than water, roads, or electricity. Imagine if we woke up one morning to find every road closed, we would be outraged. Pre-pandemic, we required roads to take us to the doctor's office, to school, and to the voting booth. High-speed internet has now replaced much of that driving, so without it, it is impossible to access many basic services.
The majority of Americans agree: broadband should be considered a public good. In a poll conducted last month, Data for Progress found that over 80 percent of likely voters — both Republicans and Democrats — support public broadband. Closing our nation’s digital divide is one mission that we can all get behind.
We might also consider high-speed internet as the modern day highway for basic human rights. While former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, instrumental in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, may not have imagined it in 1948, protecting and promoting access to basic human rights including healthcare, education, economic opportunity and political participation now requires that every American be able to access affordable, reliable, high-speed internet.
Here’s the good news: Funds allocated in the American Rescue Plan for infrastructure including broadband have allowed small, rural states like Vermont to make significant one-time investments in initial steps to close the broadband gap. The American Rescue Plan, however, is not enough. To ensure every student, family, residence and businesses can access affordable, reliable, high-speed internet, it is critical that Congress take up and pass President Biden’s American Jobs Plan which would allocate an historic $2 trillion for infrastructure and jobs including $100 billion for broadband.
As we work to deploy these resources, we must identify and center the individual broadband accessibility and affordability needs of all Americans, home by home and community by community in our process. We must also recognize what high-speed internet offers the American public today. The basic needs or human rights of Vermont students like Noah and Rory, who went to great lengths to maintain access to public education during this pandemic, must remain our starting point. Their stories and the stories of countless Americans are no less than heroic.
Lt. Governor Molly Gray (@LtGovGray) serves as Vermont’s 82nd Lt. Governor. Previously she served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Vermont and as an Adjunct Professor of International Human Rights Law at Vermont Law School.