Here's an academic publication from 2018, but it doesn't seem to make any explicit claims about diversity related reasons for the changes in the hiring process:
>The hiring process for aspiring federal air traffic controllers from approved Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) institutions has undergone several revisions in recent years. Prior to 2014, graduates from AT-CTI programs were given preferential hiring from the FAA. In 2014, the FAA announced that AT-CTI graduates would equally compete with thousands of people the FAA calls “off the street hires”--anyone can literally walk in off the street without any previous training and apply for a federal air traffic control job. To apply, the FAA requires that a candidate has United States (U.S.) citizenship, a high school diploma, speaks English, and passes the FAA’s new Biographical Questionnaire (BQ).
>Another concerning perspective from AT-CTI administrators is that CTI graduates are at an employment disadvantage with the new hiring initiatives. One of the responding administrators expressed concern that off the street applicants have increased odds of employment over CTI applicants because CTI students are combined in track one with Veteran’s Readjustment Appointment (VRA) applicants putting CTI students second while all off the street applicants are grouped as one and have an equal opportunity for selection.
>The new FAA hiring protocol for federal air traffic controllers that was implemented in February 2014 included several significant changes. In particular, the FAA reduced the role of the CTI-approved program;
therefore, the only remaining advantage for CTI graduates is that they are eligible to bypass the Air Traffic Basics Course, which is the first five weeks of qualification training at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City (FAA, 2018). In addition, the FAA introduced the Biographical Questionnaire which was envisioned to predict controller performance through a process of asking individuals to recall their typical and/or specific behaviors from earlier times in their lives. But due to the lengthy process of hiring and training an air traffic controller which can take several years, it is too soon to conclude whether the FAA’s new hiring policies improved the ability to hire individuals who are more likely to successfully become federal controllers (FAA, 2017b).
https://ojs.library.okstate.edu/osu/index.php/CARI/article/v...