Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

tracingwoodgrains.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 724 posts

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#191

Post by scott_w »

dbspin wrote: post #176
scott_w wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are explicitly the inverse of DEI approaches. This is essentially a No True Scotsman fallacy. If it's DEI, it's bad so any good approach is, by definition, not part of DEI. > DEI is predicated on outcome diversity, rather than treating applicants equally irrespective of background. The first part of this is incorrect. Good DEI is about creating a level playing field (as you correctly point out for blind people…

To expand my point. DEI is explicitly designed not to make hiring fair, but to make unfair hiring policy. Making accommodations for people who need special help (I work with the blind community so that was where my mind immediately went), but who are otherwise capable could hypothetically be part of DEI. But it also predates the term and connects to initiatives like UNCRPD Article 27 and the Americans with Disabiliti…

Your entire argument can be boiled down to:

> If it's DEI, it's bad so any good approach is, by definition, not part of DEI.

The FAA scandal, among other things I've seen, like Matt Walsh's "Am I Racist?" show there's plenty of DEI initiatives that are simply bad, stupid and lazy. As you've seen elsewhere in this topic, I've also highlighted DEI hiring policies that have thought behind them and attempt to improve diversity without engaging in discrimination.

Bitching about DEI only panders to such divisiveness and does not solve any of the problems with the bad initiatives. Neither does ignoring the problems, or calling genuine criticism "racist." Both lead us to the place we're at today where Trump blames people with "severe mental and psychological issues" for a plane crash.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#192

Post by gr3ml1n »

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…

I'll try to assume good faith, but this is the sort of framing often used in the waning days of unpopular ideas.

That's not what DEI ever was. It fundamentally came down to evaluating disparate impact and then setting targets based on it. The underlying idea is that if a given pool (in the US, generally national- or state-level statistics) has a racial breakdown like so:

  10% X
  30% Y
  60% Z
But your company or organization had a breakdown of:

  5% X
  25% Y
  70% Z
You are institutionally racist and need to pay money to various DEI firms in order to get the right ratios, where 'right' means matching (or exceeding) the population for certain ethnic minorities. The 'certain ethnic minorities' value changed over time depending on who you would ask.

The methods to get 'the right ratios' varied from things like colorblind hiring (which had a nil or opposite effect), to giving ATS-bypassing keywords to minority industry groups (what the FAA did here).

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#193

Post by apical_dendrite »

Manuel_D wrote: post #190
apical_dendrite wrote: post #148

I'm fairly certain this was an example of overfitting and Freedman's Paradox, not deliberate cheating. Let's say you have a completely random data set. You generate a bunch of random variables x1 through xn and a random dependent variable y. Then you poke around and see whether any of the x variables look like they might predict y, so you pick those variables and try to build a model on them. What you end up with is…

> I'm fairly certain this was an example of overfitting and Freedman's Paradox, not deliberate cheating. The answers to the biographical questionnaire - which screened out 90% of applicants - were leaked to ethnic affinity groups. If a select group of being being provided with the correct answers isn't cheating, I don't know what is.

No, that's not what happened. The guy from the black affinity group CLAIMED that he knew the answers. But he's a completely unreliable source who was pretending to know things that he didn't actually know. He also claimed to have a list of magic buzzwords that would get your application moved to the top of the pile, but if you look at the list of magic buzzwords that he provided, it was just a list of dozens of generic action verbs like "make", "manage", "organize", "analyze", etc. from a resume writing book. I'm sure it's the same thing with the biographical assessment. He was just telling people what he THOUGHT were the right answers.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#194

Post by gonzobonzo »

hitekker wrote: post #145
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…

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…

Right, if you look at the documents there was clear racial discrimination involved.

It's bizarre to see people say that since the media initially didn't report on the full story, telling people the full story is similar to "state-sponsored propoganda." That mindset appears to be saying that once the media has made up a narrative for the story, people should be hostile to other pertinent information, even when it's uncovering major aspects of the story that the media didn't report on.

That kind of attitude runs counter to anyone interested in finding out the truth.

Edit: Also worth pointing out the author's original article on this scandal was written a year ago, and a followup was recently written to clarify things in response to increased discussion about that article. They're a law student who initially wrote about it after coming across court documents and being surprised that there had been almost no coverage regarding what actually had happened.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#195

Post by toast0 »

galacticaactual wrote: post #170
healsdata wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

Many (or most) vision, hearing and speech impairments would likely be disqualifying for ATC; if they were to the point of needing accomidation during an interview. Mobility impairments would likely be able to be reasonably accomidated though; someone without use of their legs could work in an ATC facility that can be accessed without stairs, which would exclude some towers but not all of them. The workstation height may need to be adjustable as well, but that's not an unreasonable accomidation either.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#197

Post by sporkland »

I look at stories like this and a key moment of failure that is obvious to anyone that has ever deployed code is don't make a change and roll it out to 100% of all devices/servers immediately. Feels like there is just some basic things missing from folks brains that gradual release and validation of the impacted cohort isn't a built in instinct for us.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#198

Post by apical_dendrite »

daemonologist wrote: post #185
apical_dendrite wrote: post #148

I'm fairly certain this was an example of overfitting and Freedman's Paradox, not deliberate cheating. Let's say you have a completely random data set. You generate a bunch of random variables x1 through xn and a random dependent variable y. Then you poke around and see whether any of the x variables look like they might predict y, so you pick those variables and try to build a model on them. What you end up with is…

I agree that it seems likely that the weird questions and their weighting came from over-fitting as you describe. The cheating allegation though, from my reading, is that the "correct" answers were leaked and then disseminated by the leakee(s). (And that this was particularly impactful because it was unlikely that you would pass the overfit test otherwise.)

When I read the IG report and saw what the guy actually said (and that his list of secret buzzwords actually turned out to be a photocopy from a resume writing book) it was pretty clear that he was bullshitting and claiming that he had inside information about the process that he didn't actually have.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#199

Post by s3r3nity »

cratermoon wrote: post #121
s3r3nity wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A government full of cronies sucks... >A meritocratic...government sounds like a dystopian novel. So nepotism + networking = bad, but meritocracy also = bad...? >...we can at least hope to get our own cronies in at some point. OR you reduce the risk vector and limit the size & scope of government. Most people agree with your earlier premises, so why would I support adding powers to a structure where folks I strongly…

> So nepotism + networking = bad, but meritocracy also = bad...? The downsides of meritocracy invalidate the almost idolatrous worship of the idea seen in the tech field. Tolstoy wrote “It is principally through this false idea of inequality, and the intoxication of power and of servility resulting from it, that men associated in a state organization are enabled to commit acts opposed to their conscience without the…

Biggest issue with Democrats is learning that "People are born with different abilities."

Biggest issue with Republicans is learning that "People are born with different abilities."

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#200

Post by dbspin »

scott_w wrote: post #191
dbspin wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To expand my point. DEI is explicitly designed not to make hiring fair, but to make unfair hiring policy. Making accommodations for people who need special help (I work with the blind community so that was where my mind immediately went), but who are otherwise capable could hypothetically be part of DEI. But it also predates the term and connects to initiatives like UNCRPD Article 27 and the Americans with Disabiliti…

Your entire argument can be boiled down to: > If it's DEI, it's bad so any good approach is, by definition, not part of DEI. The FAA scandal, among other things I've seen, like Matt Walsh's "Am I Racist?" show there's plenty of DEI initiatives that are simply bad, stupid and lazy. As you've seen elsewhere in this topic, I've also highlighted DEI hiring policies that have thought behind them and attempt to improve div…

Here's another way to think of it... Very real substantive criticisms of the whole DEI project and identity politics have been rubbished for years. It was in fact impossible within the liberal left either in the academy or journalism to criticise this stuff without being labelled racist or misogynist.

Meanwhile countless people have experienced being excluded from funding, employment opportunities etc. Countless more have sat through (demonstrably ineffective, and even counterproductive) mandatory reeducation in the form of diversity workshops, antiracism training and so on. This is absolutely a major part of why we got Trump in the first place. The lefts complete unwillingness to address the failure and unpopularity of these policies. It's not a case of Trump demonising otherwise good initiatives. Quite the opposite. Rather, Trump an opportunistic populist, seized on valid criticisms to promote himself as the sane alternative.

Policies that served to derail opportunities for substantive change (Bernie in the US, Corbin in the UK) in favour of shiny new posts in HR at every university and corporation. Vivek Chibber is brilliant on this stuff, I'd recommend you check him out for a more cogent critique.

https://jacobin.com/2025/01/elite-identity-politics-professi...

Post reply on HN