FAA Faces Major Class Action Lawsuit for Favoring Diversity Over Competence in Air Traffic Control Hiring

The Federal Aviation Administration is the subject of a massive class action lawsuit alleging that since 2013, thousands of qualified applicants have been denied employment as air traffic controllers based on race.

The lawsuit filed by the Mountain States Legal Foundation represents nearly 1,000 people who went to school at their own expense to be air traffic controllers through a network of university-sponsored Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) programs. These programs, run in cooperation with the FAA since 1991 to train and test future air traffic controllers, were the entry point for the overwhelming majority of the ATC workforce.

In 2013, the Obama Administration ended the program to increase diversity in ATC hiring. The screening test stopped being ATC-specific coursework and became a "biographical questionnaire." Allegedly, this questionnaire was based on the personality traits of successful ATCs. But its real purpose was to increase the number of "underrepresented" demographics. As if to underscore the point, the FAA provided the correct candidates with a list of buzzwords to use on the questionnaire. Minority applicants were also coached on how to format their job applications so friendly selection board members could recognize them.

According to the “Trouble in the Skies” report, a few days after the FAA process, a candidate for an air traffic controller job received a recorded voice-text message from Shelton Snow, an FAA air traffic controller and then-president of the NBCFAE’s Washington Suburban Chapter. In the recorded message, Snow stated he was aware that candidates “have been getting rejection notices” due to failing the Biographical Assessment test. To prevent [National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation] NBCFAE applicants from failing the Biographical Assessment, Snow offered “some valuable pieces ofinformation that [he had]taken a screen shot of and[that he was]goingto send that to you via email.” The screenshots were intended to show the correct answer to the Biographical Assessment. Snow explained he was sharing screen shots so that as candidates “progress through thestages [of the test],” the candidates could “refer to those images so you will know which icons youshould select.” Snow stated he was “about 99 point 99 percent sure that it isexactlyhow you need to answer each question in order to getthrough the first phase.” In addition, the recorded message stated that FAA “HR Representatives” could “sign off on [theBiographical Assessment] before you actually click it.”

Finally, the report includes the long-awaited list of buzzwords! Improve your HR speak now, get connections with the right organizations, and you too might have a shot.

Anyway, no wrongdoing detected. Carry on. pic.twitter.com/z5D3Ab8VmG
— TracingWoodgrains (@tracewoodgrains) February 2, 2024

For reasons that aren't all that clear, this racially discriminatory hiring program continued under Donald Trump, but it really hit high gear under Joe Biden. I swear I'm not making any of this up.

The Secretary of Transportation has set a hiring goal of three (3) percent per fiscal year for individuals with targeted (severe) disabilities.
Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. The targeted disabilities are:
Hearing (total deafness in both ears)
Vision (Blind)
Missing Extremities
Partial Paralysis
Complete Paralysis, Epilepsy
Severe intellectual disability
Psychiatric disability
Dwarfism
Individuals with targeted disabilities have the greatest difficulty obtaining employment. This is the only protected group for which Federal agencies may have a hiring goal.

The decision to give preference to candidates based on their race or other physical characteristics is not without cost. In 2023, the situation had deteriorated to the point that even the New York Times had noticed.

They were part of an alarming pattern of safety lapses and near misses in the skies and on the runways of the United States, a Times investigation found. While there have been no major U.S. plane crashes in more than a decade, potentially dangerous incidents are occurring far more frequently than almost anyone realizes — a sign of what many insiders describe as a safety net under mounting stress.
So far this year, close calls involving commercial airlines have been happening, on average, multiple times a week, according to a Times analysis of internal F.A.A. records, as well as thousands of pages of federal safety reports and interviews with more than 50 current and former pilots, air traffic controllers and federal officials.
The incidents often occur at or near airports and are the result of human error, the agency’s internal records show. Mistakes by air traffic controllers — stretched thin by a nationwide staffing shortage — have been one major factor.

In what was supposed to be the FAA's rebuttal to the article, the FAA inadvertently, as the kids say, "said the quiet part out loud." Their own chart shows that air traffic control-related incidents are about 50 percent greater now than before Obama's policy took effect.

It is difficult to see how this policy survives a legal challenge. The American Bar Association cautions that under current Supreme Court precedents, diversity hiring cuts two ways.

Diversity initiatives should not be a zero sum game. Lawful diversity initiatives should be designed to expand opportunity for underrepresented groups without also negatively impacting opportunities for those in the majority.

There was, and may still be, collusion between the selection panel and other parties to prep selected candidates and format their applications in a way that would allow them to be identified as "not a white guy." The process is patently discriminatory in effect because it was designed to be that way. It needs to be abolished and the lesson should be financially painful to the FAA.