DEI in the FAA & Dividing Lines in Tallahassee – Top 3 Takeaways – January 31st, 2025
- DEI in the FAA. There are 24,000 of them in the US. They must train for years and have a commanding understanding of meteorology and aviation. Only about 1% of applicants eventually qualify for the job. They average earning $137,500 and they are among the most stressed-out people in our society day in and day out. That’s because they can never lose focus on the job and have literally thousands of lives resting in their hands in a single shift. Who are they? Air traffic controllers. We don’t know what role, if any, air traffic control may have played in the tragic crash between a Black Hawk helicopter on an annual proficiency training flight and an American Airlines flight that led to the death of 67 people in Arlington, Virginia Wednesday night. We simply know that it is the role of air traffic control to do what they can to avoid those types of collusions. But while the investigation into who was at fault, and what led to the crash will take time, we do know what the priority of the FAA had been most recently preceding the Trump administration. DEI. The FAA’s hiring policy over the prior two years, that was removed in a Day 1 executive order by President Trump, said that the FAA was actively recruiting those with “severe intellectual disabilities”. The former policy went on to say: Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism. Boy doesn’t hearing that make you feel that much more secure when hoping on a flight? Now here’s the thing. None of this is meant at all to suggest that A) air traffic control is at fault or B) that anyone in air traffic control at Reagon National was a DEI related hire. But what we do know is that priorities at the FAA have not been where they should have been. No one should ever be hired based on DEI considerations for anything anywhere. But good lord, in what universe could it ever make sense to do DEI-based hiring when aviation safety is at risk? But as we’ve watched in recent years with regulators dropping the ball on Boeing accountability and an increasing number of close calls in aviation... The FAA clearly hasn’t been on the ball. On that note we learned this potentially critical detail from a preliminary FAA report... That staffing was quote: not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic. Specifically, one person was handling both helicopters and airplanes. Protocol calls for one person for each...which may mean that even if there was the air traffic controller’s fault – it still may not have been their fault but instead an organizational failure due to staffing issues. According to records there are only 19 air traffic controllers currently on staff at the Reagan – when 30 is the proper number. As President Trump said in his presser yesterday... the collision was a ‘confluence of bad decisions that were made’. What we do know is that since Donald Trump’s day 1 executive order named:
- Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation changes have been made. As Trump noted in that order: Every day, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), within the U.S. Department of Transportation, oversees safety for more than 45,000 flights and 2.9 million airline passengers. These Americans trust the FAA’s public servants with their lives, and it is therefore imperative that they maintain a commitment to excellence and efficiency. During the prior administration, however, the FAA betrayed its mission by elevating dangerous discrimination over excellence. For example, prior to my Inauguration, the FAA Diversity and Inclusion website revealed that the prior administration sought to specifically recruit and hire individuals with serious infirmities that could impact the execution of their essential life-saving duties. Illegal and discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring, including on the basis of race, sex, disability, or any other criteria other than the safety of airline passengers and overall job excellence, competency, and qualification, harms all Americans, who deserve to fly with confidence. It also penalizes hard-working Americans who want to serve in the FAA but are unable to do so, as they lack a requisite disability or skin color. FAA employees must hold the qualifications and have the ability to perform their jobs to the highest possible standard of excellence. I hereby order the Secretary of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administrator to immediately return to non-discriminatory, merit-based hiring, as required by law. All so-called DEI initiatives, including all dangerous preferencing policies or practices, shall immediately be rescinded in favor of hiring, promoting, and otherwise treating employees on the basis of individual capability, competence, achievement, and dedication. Isn’t it interesting in light of the tragedy we’ve just seen that reforming the FAA specifically was a Day 1 Trump priority? At least with this administration, when there are answers to the tragedy, there will be transparency. And there’s no doubt that there’s a change in priorities at the FAA these days. Speaking of press conferences and priorities...
- Governor DeSantis tripled down on illegal immigration policy in Palm Beach County on Thursday. In DeSantis’s third roundtable in two days, this one in West Palm Beach with FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass and Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw on hand, the governor had this to say... The so-called Trump Act was “designed to fail”. The governor has become increasingly clear that it's his belief that the intent of the bill advanced by new House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton was intentionally designed to protect illegal immigration in the agriculture industry by weakening Florida’s existing law. And as I’ve broken down this week that’s absolutely true. But that wasn’t the only related bit of news yesterday. There was an insightful interview with former state Representative Joel Rudman with Florida Politics who had this to say: This was an argument waiting for an excuse. If not for immigration, they would have fought over new hours for the cafeteria. What’s the issue? According to Rudman, with Perez in particular, this is a power struggle. Rudman was reelected to the House last November but decided not to remain in that position...why? The hostility directed by Perez and his leadership team towards Governor DeSantis whom they evidently feel has had too much power. According to Rudman, last November when they were sworn in, Perez and his team said their priority was to reestablish the body as a co-equal branch of government. And here’s a quote: “(The House) would not be the Governor’s bitch”. Rudman took exception given his respect and appreciation for DeSantis’s leadership and left. He said he didn’t want to serve under those conditions. Rudman’s story squares with what we’ve seen playout this week. Daniel Perez is clearly more interested in fighting with Ron DeSantis than he is for what’s in the best interests of his constituents – which most certainly isn’t the piece of bunk that they stamped Trump’s name on. As we also learned at DeSantis’s presser. The legislature was only given about 30 minutes to look at the 87-page Perez-backed bill before they were told they had to vote on it. Some kind of leader Perez is. Nancy Pelosi would be proud. We’ve already heard from members who did read the bill after their vote and regret how they voted based on what they were told was in it but wasn’t. The only winners in Florida politics this week were Democrats who must be thrilled that Perez has decided to pick the fight they would have fought if they were in power. The next couple of years could prove to be rocky in Tallahassee. It’ll be incumbent on voters to hold their elected representatives accountable to their interests as opposed to their own political interests.