Potential accidents among airlines have skyrocketed under President Joe Biden, which critics believe is the fault of the administration’s relentless focus on “diversity, equity and inclusion” above all else.
This week, 11 Republican state attorneys general lit up the Federal Aviation Administration for prioritizing DEI “bean-counting” at the expense of safety for the 2.9 million people who fly each day.
The AGs, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, sent a letter on Wednesday to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker to demand action to correct flawed hiring policies and to refocus on safety.
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“We are troubled by some recent reports regarding your agency’s hiring practices and priorities. It seems that the FAA has placed ‘diversity’ bean counting over safety and expertise, and we worry that such misordered priorities could be catastrophic for American travelers,” the letter stated.
The AGs noted that when the FAA was first created, passenger safety was its “core mission.”
“And it must remain that way,” they added. “Millions of Americans place their lives and the lives of their loved ones in the hands of your agency. … Failure is not an option.”
When the FAA was created in 1958, policymakers believed that “aviation experts” would offer the guidance “to keep Americans safe.” Lawmakers at the time believed that the head of the agency would be surrounded by “the most competent persons in the United States in the field of aviation.”
“Unfortunately,” they wrote to Whitaker, “the Biden FAA, under your administration, appears to prioritize virtue-signaling ‘diversity’ efforts over aviation expertise. And this calls into question the agency’s commitment to safety.”
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The AGs noted that the Biden administration has stated the FAA will trade merit for a workforce that “reflects the nation that it serves.”
This meant more “diversity,” according to the agency’s current strategic plan.
“These efforts follow on work that reportedly started under the Obama Administration when the agency shockingly sought out applicants with ‘severe intellectual’ and ‘psychiatric’ disabilities to staff the agency responsible for air traffic control, aviation safety, major airports, commercial space regulation, and security and hazardous materials safety,” the AGs wrote.
The FAA’s DEI emphasis was paramount “even though it has acknowledged for more than a decade that ‘[t]here is a trade-off between diversity . . . and predicted job performance/outcomes.’”
“This trade-off raised an important question for leadership: ‘How much of a change in job performance is acceptable to achieve what diversity goals?’ The answer should have been none. But unfortunately, under your leadership the agency appears to be willing to sacrifice safety and job performance to meet race-based hiring targets.”
The AGs went on to argue that the FAA gave ground on actual passenger safety.
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They cited an August 2023 New York Times report that noted the number of near-collisions between aircraft was double that of a decade earlier.
The Times reported that 99% of America’s air traffic control facilities failed to meet their targets for fully certified controllers. A follow-up report by the National Airspace System Safety Review Team found that America had 1,002 fewer fully certified air traffic controllers in August 2023 than in August 2012.
“The FAA must return to prioritizing safety over diversity and virtue signaling,” the AGs wrote.
“The FAA should once again hire based on merit so that only the most qualified aviation experts take care of America’s air travel. When it comes to air travel, safety must always come first. American lives depend on it.”
Besides Kobach, the AGs who signed the letter came from the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and Texas.
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