It truly boggles my mind that Trump may have a legitimate basis for alleging that DEI policies have contributed to issues with ATC staffing.
> First, to liberals:
> I dislike Trump as much as anyone. Maybe I’m not supposed to play my hand like that while reporting a news article, but it’s true. I’ve wanted him out of politics since he entered the scene a decade ago, I voted against him three elections in a row, and I think he’s had a uniquely destructive effect within US politics. So I understand—please believe, I understand—just how disquieting it is to watch him stand up and blame DEI after a major tragedy.
> But Democrats did not handle it. The scandal occurred under the Obama administration. The FAA minimized it, obscured it, fought FOIA requests through multiple lawsuits, and stonewalled the public for years as the class action lawsuit rolled forward. The Trump administration missed it, too, for a term, and it’s likely most officials simply didn’t hear about it through the first few years of the Biden administration. No outlets left of Fox Business bothered to provide more than a cursory examination of it, and it never made much of a dent on the official record. Even when the New York Times ran a thoroughly reported article on air traffic controller shortages late last year, it never touched the scandal. It was possible to miss it.
Seems like bad news for minorities either way. Even if the lawsuit is dismissed, who would want to take on one of the most stressful jobs now knowing that if something goes wrong, millions of racist white people (including the president) will feel emboldened to blame you because of your skin color?
Yes, this is why anything like affirmative action was always a terrible idea.
If relevant to who gets hired, you are literally discriminating against candidates on the basis of race. If irrelevant, you still have the "maybe they're just an affirmative action hire" pall hanging over those people. Nobody wins.
The article does not imply that they reduced standards in order to let DEI student pass.
Rather they added an insane biographical test that only DEI students could pass, with the net effect of dramatically reducing the availability of ATC's.
i.e. a minority ATC is just as qualified, but there are far fewer white ATC than there should be.
They mention that extended offers declined year-over-year after the policy. The implication to me (though it is left unsaid) is that the treatment of students, colleges, etc. by the FAA led to fewer people interested in spending their own time and money for ATC training since the FAA fucked them over so badly.
> Per Fischer, applicants declined year-over-year from 2014 onward. In 2016, hiring was divided into two pools: Pool 1, veterans and CTI students (4021 applicants, 1451 offer letters) and Pool 2, for general population (25,156 applicants, 6799 who passed the biographical questionnaire, 1500 offer letters). By 2019, only 9265 applied, with 6419 (923 from Pool 1, 5496 from Pool 2), with 234 Pool 1 offer letters and 680 in Pool 2.16
It truly boggles my mind that Trump may have a legitimate basis for alleging that DEI policies have contributed to issues with ATC staffing.
> First, to liberals:
> I dislike Trump as much as anyone. Maybe I’m not supposed to play my hand like that while reporting a news article, but it’s true. I’ve wanted him out of politics since he entered the scene a decade ago, I voted against him three elections in a row, and I think he’s had a uniquely destructive effect within US politics. So I understand—please believe, I understand—just how disquieting it is to watch him stand up and blame DEI after a major tragedy.
> But Democrats did not handle it. The scandal occurred under the Obama administration. The FAA minimized it, obscured it, fought FOIA requests through multiple lawsuits, and stonewalled the public for years as the class action lawsuit rolled forward. The Trump administration missed it, too, for a term, and it’s likely most officials simply didn’t hear about it through the first few years of the Biden administration. No outlets left of Fox Business bothered to provide more than a cursory examination of it, and it never made much of a dent on the official record. Even when the New York Times ran a thoroughly reported article on air traffic controller shortages late last year, it never touched the scandal. It was possible to miss it.
Either he's a broken clock that's right twice a day, or a Stallman equivalent who was just dismissed as crazy until the truth was too big to ignore.
Seems like bad news for minorities either way. Even if the lawsuit is dismissed, who would want to take on one of the most stressful jobs now knowing that if something goes wrong, millions of racist white people (including the president) will feel emboldened to blame you because of your skin color?
Yes, this is why anything like affirmative action was always a terrible idea.
If relevant to who gets hired, you are literally discriminating against candidates on the basis of race. If irrelevant, you still have the "maybe they're just an affirmative action hire" pall hanging over those people. Nobody wins.
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The article does not imply that they reduced standards in order to let DEI student pass.
Rather they added an insane biographical test that only DEI students could pass, with the net effect of dramatically reducing the availability of ATC's.
i.e. a minority ATC is just as qualified, but there are far fewer white ATC than there should be.
1 reply →
The relevant question is whether this issue affected the absolute number of filled ATC positions, not just who got them.
Though the facts on the latter are Not Great, and nuance is not exactly abundant right now.
They mention that extended offers declined year-over-year after the policy. The implication to me (though it is left unsaid) is that the treatment of students, colleges, etc. by the FAA led to fewer people interested in spending their own time and money for ATC training since the FAA fucked them over so badly.
> Per Fischer, applicants declined year-over-year from 2014 onward. In 2016, hiring was divided into two pools: Pool 1, veterans and CTI students (4021 applicants, 1451 offer letters) and Pool 2, for general population (25,156 applicants, 6799 who passed the biographical questionnaire, 1500 offer letters). By 2019, only 9265 applied, with 6419 (923 from Pool 1, 5496 from Pool 2), with 234 Pool 1 offer letters and 680 in Pool 2.16
Both of those questions are relevant.
2 replies →