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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#161

Post by PaulHoule »

s3r3nity wrote: post #85
legitster wrote: post #83

This is a fascinating read, but the thing that bugs me about this whole affair is that when this came to light many years ago it was treated as a cheating and recruitment scandal. But only recently has it been reframed as a DEI issue. Taking old, resolved scandals - slapping a coat of culture war paint on it - and then selling it as a new scandal is already a popular MO for state-sponsored propoganda, so we should be…

The cheating element is only _part_ of it, and the dominant regime at the time downplayed / ignored the DEI elements because that was supported by their ideology...like a sacred cow. Litigating "disparate impact" cases across any category became a successful attack vector against capitalist structures, and supported by Democratic leadership. This isn't "slapping a new coat of paint for propaganda," but rather exposin…

If I had to blame anything on the Democrats it is this:

Valuing competence is one thing. Valuing diversity is another thing. You can have neither, either one, or both. The democrats make a conspicuous show of not valuing competence in addition to making some noises about diversity.

Nobody said Barack Obama was an affirmative action case, no, he was one of the greatest politicians of the first quarter-century. On the other hand I feel that many left-leaning politicians make conspicuous displays of incompetence, I'd particularly call out Karen Bass, who would fall for whatever Scientology was selling and then make excuses for it. I think they want donors to know that whatever they are they aren't capable, smart and ambitious like Ralph Nader but rather they don't connect the dots between serving donors and what effect it has on their constituents.

When Bass was running for mayor of L.A. in a contested election for which she had to serve the whole community she went through a stunning transformation and really seemed to "get it", all the duckspeak aimed at reconciling a lefty constituency and rightist donors went away.

Nowhere is this disregard for competence more conspicuous in the elections where a senile or disabled white man is running against a lunatic. Fetterman beat Oz (they said, it's nothing, he just has aphasia, except his job is to speak for Pennsylvania) but they held on to Biden until the last minute against Trump and his replacement lost.

Democrats need to make it clear that you can have both, but shows of competence increase the conflict between being a party that is a favorite of donors and being a party that has mass appeal. Being just a little sheepish and stupid is the easy way to reconcile those but we see how that went in 2024.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#162

Post by taeric »

legitster wrote: post #83

This is a fascinating read, but the thing that bugs me about this whole affair is that when this came to light many years ago it was treated as a cheating and recruitment scandal. But only recently has it been reframed as a DEI issue. Taking old, resolved scandals - slapping a coat of culture war paint on it - and then selling it as a new scandal is already a popular MO for state-sponsored propoganda, so we should be…

Worse, it doesn't prove what it asserts. The assertion is that the quality of hires obviously got impacted. But, not once does it look at performance of hires.

This narrative also doesn't expand the look at hiring numbers over the years, where it would be seen that the last 4 years are the only growth years in the organization going back even before this scandal.

Nor does it look at any other problems. Sequestration is mentioned in passing, but the impact it had was sizeable. By the numbers, it is almost certainly more impactful than even the scandal that is focused on.

What this does is appeal to the public court for justice on an old scandal. And right now, the public court is dominated by Trump and his supporters. One can try and couch ideas by "guys, I'm not an extreme Republican" all one wants, but that doesn't change that this feeds their narrative far more than it does to help any progress on the actual court case that is ostensibly being highlighted.

So, now instead of getting quantitative analysis in a rigorous court with investigations, we get people carrying water for Trump as he blames DEI.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#163

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #156
hitekker wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a misreading of the article. This scandal was not just "cheating and recruitment" but forcing "Diversity" with a side of "Equity". To quote the facts: > The NBCFAE continued to pressure the FAA to diversify, with its members meeting with the DOT, FAA, Congressional Black Caucus, and others to push for increased diversity among ATCs. After years of fiddling with the research and years of pressure from the NBCFA…

I don't think I even know what "DEI" is anymore. Political pundits have turned it into a generic slur, a boogeyman that vaguely means "I have to work with minorities now??" I've always thought it simply meant "drawing from the widest possible candidate funnel, including instead of excluding people who have traditionally been shut out." At least that's how all of my training sessions at work frame it. But, like everyt…

[deleted]

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#164

Post by aikinai »

legitster wrote: post #110
BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an external (not US) PoV, it might also be that DEI was too much of a sacred cow before to call a spade a spade.

Maybe! But in this case, the bulk of the mistakes by the FAA happened in the 2012-2014. In the middle of the Obama administration, but well before the bulk of the really controversial post-BLM DEI stuff that the current administration is largely attacking.

DEI quotas have been around for decades. We just used to call it affirmative action and it was far less aggressive and blatant.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#165

Post by insane_dreamer »

refurb wrote: post #122
insane_dreamer wrote: post #71

[flagged]

Least qualified according to who? The Democrats? It’s politics. These are political roles. It’s organizational leading and having people in place who are aligned with your goals, not splicing DNA. And we’ve had the qualified one who got 90 Senate votes in confirmation and what did that get us? The Iraq War and the Afghan departure with abandoned locals falling off airplanes. It’s laughable when the idea of checking t…

> It’s organizational leading and having people in place who are aligned with your goals, not splicing DNA.

We're talking about the DOD here, not Transportation Secretary.

And this conversation is in the context that these are the same people who are "rooting out the disease of DEI", Red Scare style, in order to "promote meritocracy".

As for whether qualified leaders got us into wars we should never have gotten into (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) that's a whole other conversation.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#166

Post by d1str0 »

ryandrake wrote: post #132
kikokikokiko wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why are you (and many others) just assuming the black candidate is less qualified?

That’s literally what this whole article was about. Removing a high correlation performance test, that black candidates didn’t pass as frequently, and replacing it with a very low correlation questionnaire that provided a more diverse applicant pool while weeding out highly qualified individuals.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#167

Post by AdamN »

s3r3nity wrote: post #108
insane_dreamer wrote: post #71

[flagged]

>But at the same time we -- meaning Trump and the GOP Senate -- just appointed the least qualified candidate in the history of the US... I'm old enough to remember when Biden nominated someone with no aviation experience to lead the head of the FAA, and also had corruption charges while acting as head of the LA transit system....AND Democrats were in _favor_ of that lack of experience: "Democrats...spinning his lack…

We would call those qualifications to be a Sr. Principal Engineer or higher even ... not an SVP in charge of 1M+ people. Hegseth is way out of his league.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#168

Post by SR2Z »

legitster wrote: post #123
s3r3nity wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cheating element is only _part_ of it, and the dominant regime at the time downplayed / ignored the DEI elements because that was supported by their ideology...like a sacred cow. Litigating "disparate impact" cases across any category became a successful attack vector against capitalist structures, and supported by Democratic leadership. This isn't "slapping a new coat of paint for propaganda," but rather exposin…

> and the dominant regime at the time downplayed / ignored the DEI elements because that was supported by their ideology In the eye of the beholder. The current regime is upplaying the DEI elements because of their ideology. The difference though is, unless everyone involved has a time machine, using current cultural agenda items and going back in time and attributing them to people is always going to be wild specula…

> using current cultural agenda items and going back in time and attributing them to people is always going to be wild speculation.

I'm as blue as they come, but let's not mince words.

This was a racial equity policy. Like a lot of them, it was designed by idiots and/or racists.

Much like the elite college admissions lawsuit, we don't need to guess at people's ideology - they WROTE DOWN that the cognitive test "disadvantaged" black applicants and so a biographical questionnaire was needed to re-advantage them.

When Trump opened his mouth to blame DEI for the crash, about 95% of what he said was hateful, totally-made-up bullshit. Despite that and speaking practically, DEI had a significant role to play in the ATC understaffing during the crash.

I really wish that our party was better at calling out crazy people within our ranks, ESPECIALLY when they do stuff that's guaranteed to alienate a solid chunk of the country just based on if "their worst subject in school was science" or whatever other deranged, racist proxy for race they come up with.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#169

Post by xhkkffbf »

boohoo123 wrote: post #118

There's a simple fix to removing discrimination in hiring practices that no one seems to notice. Remove all demographic questions from the application. Hide the name and gender and attach a applicant ID. It's as easy as that. Every job should be looking for the most qualified individual regardless of race, nationality, religion, and sex. Demographics in the application are a recipe for disaster on both sides of the i…

IT's not so simple. Eventually there will be an interview and the person scoring the interview may have some bias.

And as someone else points out, some schools like HBCU have names that carry racial coding.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#170

Post by galacticaactual »

healsdata wrote: post #155
boohoo123 wrote: post #118

There's a simple fix to removing discrimination in hiring practices that no one seems to notice. Remove all demographic questions from the application. Hide the name and gender and attach a applicant ID. It's as easy as that. Every job should be looking for the most qualified individual regardless of race, nationality, religion, and sex. Demographics in the application are a recipe for disaster on both sides of the i…

Everything is easy until you account for the real world. A disabled person who has to request accommodations for the application process will immediately be outed for having a disability. The same applies for people who speak different languages. Beyond that, the application is only one place in which discrimination occurs. - It also happens during interviews which are much harder to anonymize. - It also happens in t…

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