Last month’s horrific plane crash that killed 67 at Washington’s Reagan National Airport was a wake-up call for the millions of Americans who fly regularly.
We count on pilots and air-traffic controllers to keep us safe in the skies — but that trust is betrayed when the government inserts irrelevant and discriminatory considerations into its hiring policies.
Unfortunately, that happened.
As President Donald Trump pointed out in the disaster’s aftermath, the Federal Aviation Administration in 2014 replaced its well-established merit-based selection process for would-be air-traffic controllers with a new “Biographical Questionnaire.”
Rather than focusing on a candidate’s proven skill set or familiarity with the high-pressure demands of the job, this test asked questions designed to benefit certain racial groups.
While previously the FAA’s entry tests favored candidates with years of rigorous aviation training in FAA-approved career technical schools, its new test measured intangible factors with little bearing on actual job performance.
These changes were intended to reduce the percentage of Caucasian candidates in the hiring pool. The FAA discriminated against ATC applicants in violation of federal civil-rights laws.
We filed suit in 2015, and have certified a class action of nearly 1,000 people who would be ATCs today.
Our clients were forced to find other careers — and today the FAA is seeing severe shortages of qualified controllers. The court case continues, 10 years later.
The injustice is as bitter as it is unnecessary.
Without enough qualified controllers on duty, the margin for error shrinks dramatically.
Each controller must manage more flights with fewer backups, which compounds the stress and fatigue inherent in an already high-stakes profession.
By excluding more than 1,000 eminently qualified candidates, the FAA not only derailed promising careers, but also missed an opportunity to bolster a workforce that is critical for public safety.
The agency also put more stress on qualified controllers, who have had to pick up the slack for colleagues who passed a test designed to satisfy racial motivations, not safety needs.
The FAA’s initial misconduct occurred under President Barack Obama. The agency dropped the discriminatory test midway through President Donald Trump’s first term.
But President Joe Biden made things worse for our clients: His administration fought our lawsuit tooth and nail, asserting the FAA was just trying to break down racial barriers.
Our clients know the truth: They are the victims of the government’s misguided DEI efforts.
Even now, the federal government is contending that it can hold back over 14,000 critical documents, hoping not to shed more light on the FAA’s actions.
We have filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking FAA documents related to DEI in hiring and promotion, and for internal emails with terms like “whiteness” or “white privilege” — but were rejected, told that the issue represented no imminent threat to public safety.
Even after the Reagan Airport disaster, we’ve received nothing from the federal government.
After the crash, critics were quick to argue that Trump shouldn’t have attributed the tragedy to DEI, arguing there is no rock-solid proof (as yet) that a specific DEI measure led to the crash.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg hotly defended his record of diversity initiatives on social media.
But the onus is not on defenders of merit, skill and talent to prove this case; rather, the burden is with those who defend the discriminatory use of race in hiring to explain why their priorities did not lead to danger.
On that score, Trump’s critics have utterly failed.
Particularly under Buttigieg, the FAA has never explained why thousands of capable controller candidates were left sitting on the sidelines, or how it will address significant staff shortages that leave entire regions chronically under-served.
By contrast, new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has pledged to tear out DEI within the FAA, root and branch — something Buttigieg never did.
One way Duffy could start is by ensuring that our clients are made whole, and that the FAA enters an agreement in court to never again use race in hiring, promotion, retention or training.
They say diversity is our strength. But in reality, achieving a distorted notion of “diversity” based on race has made our system weaker, and Americans more vulnerable.
William E. Trachman, general counsel for Mountain States Legal Foundation, is a former deputy assistant secretary for civil rights at the US Department of Education. Grady J. Block is an attorney for Mountain States Legal Foundation.