WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dr. Safiya U. Noble, a nationally recognized scholar on the potential misuse of artificial intelligence, will deliver the 2025 Everett C. Parker Lecture and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Anna M. Gomez will receive the Newton N. Minow Award, the United Church of Christ’s Media Justice Ministry announced today.
The 43rd Annual Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Lecture and Awards Breakfast will be held at 8 a.m. on Thursday, October 30, 2025, at First Congregational United Church of Christ, 945 G Street NW, Washington, D.C. The event will also be livestreamed.
Dr. Noble is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is the director of the Center on Resilience & Digital Justice and co-director of the Minderoo Initiative on Tech & Power at UCLA. She also serves as a director of the UCLA DataX Initiative, leading work on critical data studies for the campus.
She is the author of the best-selling book Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press), which has been widely reviewed in both scholarly and popular publications. In 2021, she was recognized as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow (popularly known as the “genius” grant) for her groundbreaking work on algorithmic discrimination.
Noble’s work has been celebrated widely: Rolling Stone profiled her in 2023 in “These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI.” In 2022, she received the inaugural NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award, presented by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. And in 2024, she headlined the Outbraving Summit at Harvard University, convened by Brandi Collins-Dexter, whom UCC Media Justice announced earlier this summer as the posthumous 2025 recipient of the Everett C. Parker Award.
Commissioner Gomez, sworn in as the FCC’s 49th Commissioner in September 2023, brings more than three decades of public and private sector experience in communications law and policy. At the FCC, she has worked to ensure that rural, Tribal, suburban, and urban communities alike can get and stay connected—while safeguarding consumer protections, strengthening public safety networks, and expanding broadband access.
The Minow Award recognizes, in particular, Gomez’s dedication to the First Amendment during a time when it has been under threat like never before. This year, she launched a nationwide First Amendment Tour to engage with journalists, broadcasters, and communities about the essential role of a free press in a healthy democracy. Through this initiative, she is amplifying local stories, defending press freedom, and reinforcing the FCC’s commitment to diversity, localism, and competition in media.
Gomez’s career includes senior leadership at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, where she oversaw the nation’s transition to digital television and helped establish a broadband network for first responders; twelve years in leadership roles at the FCC; and positions at the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and the National Economic Council. A Latina American who spent part of her childhood in Colombia, she brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her work.
The Newton N. Minow Award—established on the 50th anniversary of former FCC Chairman Newton Minow’s famous “Vast Wasteland” speech advocating for television programming in the public interest—honors individuals who have served at the highest levels of government while demonstrating an exacting standard of excellence in serving the public.
Earlier this summer, UCC Media Justice also announced that Brandi Collins-Dexter will be recognized posthumously with the 2025 Everett C. Parker Award for her extraordinary leadership in advancing media justice and shaping the national conversation on race, culture, and democracy.
About UCC Media Justice Ministry and the Parker Lecture
The UCC Media Justice Ministry is the media justice arm of the United Church of Christ denomination, which includes about 4,600 congregations and more than 700,000 members. Rev. Dr. Parker was inspired by the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to reform television coverage of the civil rights movement in the South. The advocacy of OC Inc., UCCMJM’s predecessor, resulted in the establishment of the right of all American citizens to participate before the FCC and the FCC being compelled to take away the broadcast license of the pro-segregationist television station WLBT-TV in Jackson, Miss., in 1969 for failing to serve the public interest.
The Parker Lecture was created in 1982 to recognize the Rev. Dr. Parker’s pioneering work as an advocate for the public’s rights in broadcasting. The Parker Lecture is the only program of its kind in the United States that examines telecommunications in the digital age from an ethical perspective.
Ticket information, sponsorship opportunities, livestream links, and additional details about the 43rd Annual Parker Lecture can be found at https://uccmediajustice.org/Parker-lecture-2025.