The tragic midair collision of an American Airlines plane and a military helicopter last week in Washington DC has sadly brought DEI hiring practices to the forefront of American politics. It’s one thing, after all, for leftists to practice their dumb, counterproductive, unfair ‘social justice’ policies in the halls of academia or their woke corporations, but it’s quite another to do it when actual lives are at stake, and they’ve been doing it for years. So when dozens are snuffed out in an instant and there’s even the slightest chance DEI could have been a fraction of the culprit for what was obviously a huge series of massive mistakes, it shouldn’t be surprising when people start asking questions.
Predictably, those questions, especially when posed by President Donald Trump, have been met by the left with a degree of incredulity and ‘righteous’ indignation that is stunning, even for them. “How dare you!” they shrieked, channeling their inner Greta Thunberg, as if it’s somehow sacrosanct to question their religion of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ in a time like this. To paraphrase Shakespeare, methinks they doth protest too much.
Describing what should be the hiring process for a position as critical as air traffic controller, Trump told reporters: “We want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that’s psychologically superior. And that’s what we’re going to have.” Unless you’re a raving leftist lunatic, it’s hard to disagree with that.
Ever true to form, in their quest to tarnish Trump they completely mischaracterized what he said. Despite a few social media influencers on our side of things prematurely and unfairly jumping to conclusions regarding specific people (yeah, we really should stop doing that), the president made no specific accusation that an individual potential DEI hire was at fault for the crash. Instead, he simply acknowledged the possibility and pointed out the basic fact that people in these positions should be hired based on a “high standard” that the Biden administration deprioritized in their quest for diversity.
Turns out, the crash, and Trump’s statement, came as the Federal Aviation Administration, as revealed by the New York Post, is embroiled in a class-action lawsuit brought by 1,000 would-be air traffic controllers who were allegedly turned down for jobs because of diversity hiring targets. According to the Post, staffing levels were “not normal” at the time of the collision. In other words, an agency responsible for protecting the lives of millions of travelers every single day was short-handed, and it was entirely self-inflicted.
“The crux of the lawsuit is that the FAA, under the Obama administration, dropped a skill-based system for hiring controllers and replaced it with a ‘biographical assessment’ in an alleged bid to boost the number of minority job applicants,” wrote Emily Crane and Ben Kochman in the piece. They went on to cite court papers that allege that lead plaintiff Andrew Brigida, a white male, was turned down for a job despite scoring 100% on his training exam.
Imagine turning down someone for a job you clearly need to hire for solely on the basis of that applicant being the ‘wrong’ color. If this happened to anyone other than a white male it would be all over every mainstream news outlet for days and weeks on end. Similarly, imagine hiring someone solely on the basis of race who isn’t competent or qualified for a critical position where a single mistake could result in hundreds dead. If a non-qualified white person had been hired simply because they were white, it would also be on every mainstream outlet for days and weeks on end. No matter how you slice it, it’s dumb, and dangerous.
To be fair, in this atmosphere I truly feel sympathy for female and minority air traffic controllers who are qualified, passed the requisite tests, made it based on merit, and are good at their jobs. They shouldn’t have their credentials questioned simply because of who they are. But if you’re going to blame one or the other side of the political spectrum for this skepticism, it would be wrong to blame the right. Because the left put us in this position by their insistence on equal outcomes come hell or high water, regardless of the cost. To them, better to leave jobs unfilled than fill them with white males. Even if people die. Because diversity, or something. (Like I said, it’s a religion.)
Obviously, plenty of ‘DEI hires’ are nevertheless great at their jobs, even if they got there unfairly. But there are doubtless others who aren’t, and if testing and qualifications mean anything at all the percentage of great to poor non-DEI hires is obviously going to be higher than the opposite.
I’m about to relay a concept many aren’t going to like, but is nevertheless true: If an illegal immigrant commits a crime, it doesn’t matter how well behaved other illegal immigrants are. That person should’ve never been here in the first place. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch. Similarly, if an individual gains a position because of DEI instead of qualifications, then proceeds to massively screw up at that position, it will and should be blamed on DEI. Doesn’t matter how well others who were hired because of DEI perform. That person should’ve never been hired in the first place. Again, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.
Call it karma, or cosmic justice, or whatever you want. But when you try to rig the system, people are naturally going to be skeptical. And you end up causing far more trouble in the end.
Was an individual DEI hire specifically responsible in some way for last week’s crash? We don’t know yet, but because of the left’s policies we are almost duty-bound to speculate. And they can save their righteous indignation, because it’s their own fault. Has DEI made plane travel less safe overall? Common sense, and Vice President JD Vance, say yes.
"This is not saying that the person who was at the controls was a DEI hire,” Vance said Sunday on Fox News. “But let's just say the person at the controls didn't have enough staffing around him or her because we were turning people away because of DEI reasons. There is a very direct connection between the policies of the last administration and short-staffed air traffic controllers. That has to stop."
When it does, from air travelers who just want to get to their destinations safely to white male applicants tired of getting discriminated against to minorities in critical positions who will no longer be questioned as to whether they’re in those positions because of DEI, we’ll ALL be better off.
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