Pilots of both the Blackhawk and the Commercial Plane were white men

[progree]

18. Just now a post in LBN - a Wapo fact check on the history of DEI in FAA

Last edited Fri Jan 31, 2025, 10:57 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143384977
WaPo free with no requirement to sign in: https://archive.is/nmBrL

Trump launched air controller diversity program that he now decries
At news conference, Trump read a list of disabilities he calls disqualifying, but his administration started such hiring in 2019

...

For air traffic controllers, the Obama administration in 2013 instituted a new hiring system that introduced a biographical questionnaire to attract minorities, underrepresented in the controller corps. The program was criticized, such as in a Fox News report in 2015, as making it harder for more skilled applicants to get hired as controllers.

But Trump, in his first term, left the policy in place, . . .

Moreover, the FAA under Trump in 2019 launched a program to hire controllers using the very criteria he decried at his news conference.

. . .

The link under “targeted disabilities” is now dead, but the Wayback Machine retains links from June 2017 and January 2021 that show the page was unchanged during Trump’s tenure. The list included:
Hearing (total deafness in both ears)
Vision (Blind)
Missing Extremities
Partial Paralysis
Complete Paralysis, Epilepsy
Severe intellectual disability
Psychiatric disability
Dwarfism

much more interesting fact checks in linked article

Edited to add a couple paragraphs to clarify that while diversity initiatives didn't start under Trump, it was under Trump that the FAA "launched a program to hire controllers using the very criteria he decried at his news conference."