It sounds like the ruling is quite narrow. First, Charter was looking to dismiss the case. The lower court denied the dismissal and the 9th circuit upheld the

It sounds like the ruling is quite narrow. First, Charter was looking to dismiss the case. The lower court denied the dismissal and the 9th circuit upheld the denial of the dismissal. That doesn't mean ESN wins the case, it means Comcast doesn't have first amendment grounds to dismiss an anti-discrimination case. It should also be noted that Charter didn't ask to dismiss the case due to weak evidence. They argued that their first amendment rights bar any claim of discrimination against their editorial decision. The judges wrote that the case "does not seek to regulate the content of Charter's conduct, but only the manner in which it reaches its editorial decisions—which is to say, free of discriminatory intent". Charter's case for dismissal was weak because they were arguing that their first amendment editorial right meant that no discrimination case could be brought against them. The court rebutted that saying that the case isn't about what they put on their system, but how they decide on it. If they deny all African American owned companies from their system because they don't want African American owned businesses succeeding, that doesn't fall under free speech because it's unrelated to the content - the decision isn't an editorial one, but a discriminatory one. Whether the evidence of discrimination is weak or not isn't part of this ruling. This ruling is just about whether the first amendment's protection of editorial decisions mean that one can't bring a racial discrimination case even if Charter said, "we won't put any African American owned stations on our system". The ruling seems to be hit the nail on the head: you have editorial rights, but those rights about the content; you're not allowed to deny access because of the race of the person who owns the content. This wasn't a ruling on the merits of the evidence.