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
“All qualify for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, a little runway.”
— President Donald Trump, decrying what he called DEI standards imposed by previous administrations, Jan. 30
“…
Trump’s claim was repeated in
an executive orderTrump signed Thursday that ordered a review of aviation safety: “During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence.”
That’s false. In his first term, Trump left the standards unchanged.
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, leading to
a class-action lawsuit filed in 2019 by Mountain States Legal Foundation. The case
was due to go to trial this year.
Moreover, the FAA under Trump in 2019 launched a program to hire controllers using the very criteria he decried at his news conference.
“FAA Provides Aviation Careers to People with Disabilities,” the agency
announced on April 11, 2019. The pilot program, the announcement said, would “identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce.”
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. …”