OPINION:
Years before diversity, equity and inclusion became the official woke battle cry for race-based everything, the Federal Aviation Administration suddenly began hiring based on skin color for the critically important job of air traffic controller. These are the tower-toiling folks trained to keep aircraft on their correct routes away from one another.
In 2013, the FAA pipeline for new controllers flowed from two main sources: colleges enrolled in the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiatives and former military specialists. The recruiting seemed to go well for years, but then the Obama team banned selection from merit.
Andrew J. Brigida, a White discarded trainee, sued, citing this irony in a court filing: “Field trainers expressed preference for CTI graduates over general public hires.”
Ten years later, the case plods on. In a new filing, Mr. Brigida’s attorneys accused the Biden FAA of stonewalling requests for thousands of documents to prove racial discrimination and their class-action demands for monetary damages.
Civil rights activists in and outside the FAA had decided that the number of Black air controllers was insufficient. In quick order, the FAA dropped a preference for CTI graduate recruits and made “off the street” the main applicant highway.
Thousands of White aspirants got nailed, including Mr. Brigida, a graduate from a CTI-certified Arizona college who scored 100% on his Air Traffic Selection and Training exam (AT-SAT). It didn’t matter. As a White applicant, the FAA pushed him aside. He had flunked the just-instituted biographical test, which revealed a candidate’s race.
The Brigida case has taken on added significance. On Jan. 29, an Army Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines Bombardier regional jet approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Three soldiers and the plane’s 64 passengers and crew were killed.
The New York Times reported that one FAA controller was doing the job for two, directing the chopper and aircraft. This disclosure underscores the FAA’s persistent air controller shortages. The Black Hawk flew too high outside its assigned route along the Potomac River.
Reading the Brigida case file shows how the FAA’s early version of what would become DEI can ruin hopes and dreams.
Complaints from civil rights advocates spurred the FAA to request a study that concluded there were “barriers” to minorities. The FAA then pushed aside the CTI preferential list of some 3,500 qualified applicants despite an internal FAA analysis that said CTI was “making great strides to incorporate minority students and faculty in their programs.”
A Brigida filing said 11.5% of CTI enrollment were Black Americans, a higher percentage than the total U.S. workforce. Mr. Brigida eventually gave up his dream and joined the FAA as a project manager. The attorneys for him and a second plaintiff said about 4,000 CTI students answered the biographical survey and 85% “failed.”
“Trading public safety and operational efficiency for political expediency, the FAA abruptly abandoned its merit-based employment screening system in early 2014,” said the lawsuit, filed by the Mountain States Legal Foundation.
“Having invested years of their lives and thousands of dollars to establish their careers, the putative Class members, in this case, found themselves largely jobless or underemployed, burdened with significant debt and a disvalued college degree — even divorced or homeless in some cases — all because the government decided to illegally further race-based objectives.”
Alarmed by horror stories in 2016, Congress told the FAA to put less emphasis on race. The biographical questionnaire disappeared.
Eventually, Mr. Brigida won a big preliminary battle. In February 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich in the District of Columbia granted class-action status over Biden administration objections.
In January, three days before President Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Brigida’s attorneys said the Transportation Department, led by Pete Buttigieg, was withholding more than 15,000 documents they needed to prove that sidelining CTI made the airways less safe.
“The FAA has withheld briefing materials on ‘Operational Errors,’” they told the judge. “Such errors bear on Plaintiffs’ claim that the FAA hired less qualified [air traffic controllers] for race-based reasons, thereby leading to reduced job performance.”
I asked the FAA about the air traffic controller numerical shortage. The response was that the FAA has over 14,000 controllers and exceeded its hiring goal of 1,800 in 2024 with 1,811.
Yet, a special FAA safety team report in November 2023 said the 1,800 target “does not adequately satisfy system needs with regard to complexity, growth, and trajectory.”
The report added, “The understaffing that currently exists within the [air traffic control organization] places additional strain on the system, further eroding the margin of safety and increasing risk.”
The FAA ordered the safety review after a series of “serious” runway incidents that year.
CTI colleges, once numbering 36, are now at 24. An FAA website says CTI is in the midst of “expansion.”
In office, Mr. Trump quickly went to war against race-based hiring and DEI, stripping the ideology of government funding.
On Feb. 27, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy visited the FAA Air Traffic Control Academy in Oklahoma and buried DEI further.
An FAA press release said Mr. Duffy announced a plan to “supercharge” hiring of air traffic controllers. He will “raise the bar on safety by recruiting the best and brightest through a merit-based process. … Candidates that receive the highest score of ‘Well Qualified’ on their Air Traffic Skills Assessment Test will be given priority for the Academy.”
Mr. Duffy said, “This staffing shortage has been a known challenge for over a decade, and this administration is committed to solving it. The new streamlined hiring process is just the first step to deliver on President Trump’s agenda to prioritize the American people’s safety and modernize the federal government.”
With that, farewell to the FAA’s Obama-Biden turbulence.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist for The Washington Times.