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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#31

Post by wand3r »

scott_w wrote: post #23
ars wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this not DEI? This was a deliberate and conscious attempt to create a test that would pass DEI candidates at higher rates, with question that had nothing to do with the actual needed skills. And they did it because they were pressured to "increase diversity".

As I’ve said twice now: it was the actual thing that was done (in this case, lowering standards and throwing qualified people to the wolves) that was lazy and stupid, not the umbrella “DEI” itself. That’s because the actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds is difficult and takes time. It’s things like outreach, financial support, changing societal attitudes. Instead of that, they took the lazy opt…

This is kind of like the argument that communism is great but no one has been able to implement it correctly yet. "Setting targets" having highly paid DEI consultants, and identity based hiring is what DEI is. Lowercase diversity and inclusion are good ideals, which I think is what you are saying. Uppercase DEI are the exact policies we are talking about here.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#32

Post by cakealert »

motorest wrote: post #30
cakealert wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> You purposely decided to omit the fact that the "biological questionaire" was in fact a change in the way applicants were evaluated

> * The FAA introduced a bigraphical questionnaire which screened out 90% of applicants.

???

> which eliminated the privilege of an in-group to avoid to compete with "walk-ons", i.e., anyone outside of the privileged group

> The answers to this questionnaire were distributed to members of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees.

??????

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#33

Post by spectraldrift »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #20
spectraldrift wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bar wasn’t lowered at all. What happened was that the FAA stopped giving preferential treatment to a separate group—namely, CTI graduates—by replacing their streamlined path with a flawed biographical screening. Every candidate still has to pass the same rigorous training and certification.

You created this account 1hr ago, and are already 3 comments in on this topic. In all your comments you're doing mental gymnastics on a pretty clear-cut case. they have tapes . Imagine, for a second, having tapes on someone saying "Our organization, he said, “wasn’t for ~~Caucasians~~ , it wasn’t for, you know, the ~~white~~ male, it wasn’t for an alien on Mars,” and he confirmed that he provided information “to mini…

Let's focus on the article and evidence rather than personal details or dismissive labels. Personal attacks don't add to the discussion and go against HN guidelines for civil and substantive debate.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#34

Post by arkh »

motorest wrote: post #19
navtoj wrote: post #4

wow.. our society really has a tendency to overcorrect regarding social issues

> wow.. our society really has a tendency to overcorrect regarding social issues I don't agree. You're reacting to a one-sided, very partial critique of a policy change that no longer benefitted a specific group and the only tradeoff was a hypothetical and subjective drop of the hiring bar. This complain can also be equally dismissed as members of the privileged group complaining over the loss of privilege. The artic…

> equal footing

So, the candidates who were not members of some racially based association also got access to the answers to the first test?

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#35

Post by NitpickLawyer »

spectraldrift wrote: post #33
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You created this account 1hr ago, and are already 3 comments in on this topic. In all your comments you're doing mental gymnastics on a pretty clear-cut case. they have tapes . Imagine, for a second, having tapes on someone saying "Our organization, he said, “wasn’t for ~~Caucasians~~ , it wasn’t for, you know, the ~~white~~ male, it wasn’t for an alien on Mars,” and he confirmed that he provided information “to mini…

Let's focus on the article and evidence rather than personal details or dismissive labels. Personal attacks don't add to the discussion and go against HN guidelines for civil and substantive debate.

You are right. My bad. Please disregard the first line.

The tapes thing still holds, tho. They have tapes. Care to comment on those?

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#36

Post by aydyn »

scott_w wrote: post #25
thaumasiotes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're imagining that there's ever been a meaning of DEI other than quotas, but there hasn't. That's the way it began and the only thing it's ever done or wanted.

Then maybe you should see how it’s done in other countries and companies. I’ve worked on hiring and we’ve never once lowered our standards just to get in a black candidate. What I’ve seen done is conscious outreach to increase diversity of applicants, changing language to increase applications from women, blind reviews where you can’t see the name or details of the applicant (to minimise subconscious bias). All of th…

[flagged]

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#37

Post by Duwensatzaj »

motorest wrote: post #19
navtoj wrote: post #4

wow.. our society really has a tendency to overcorrect regarding social issues

> wow.. our society really has a tendency to overcorrect regarding social issues I don't agree. You're reacting to a one-sided, very partial critique of a policy change that no longer benefitted a specific group and the only tradeoff was a hypothetical and subjective drop of the hiring bar. This complain can also be equally dismissed as members of the privileged group complaining over the loss of privilege. The artic…

> once the rules changed to have them compete on equal footing for the same position... That's suddenly a problem.

It wasn’t on equal footing, so your entire post is based on either a misunderstanding or you’re just blatantly trolling in which case well done, I totally bit.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#38

Post by arkh »

spectraldrift wrote: post #33
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You created this account 1hr ago, and are already 3 comments in on this topic. In all your comments you're doing mental gymnastics on a pretty clear-cut case. they have tapes . Imagine, for a second, having tapes on someone saying "Our organization, he said, “wasn’t for ~~Caucasians~~ , it wasn’t for, you know, the ~~white~~ male, it wasn’t for an alien on Mars,” and he confirmed that he provided information “to mini…

Let's focus on the article and evidence rather than personal details or dismissive labels. Personal attacks don't add to the discussion and go against HN guidelines for civil and substantive debate.

Ok, let's focus on the article. Directly from it:

> they concluded the following:

> Snow was the one in the recording Reilly obtained. He explained to people how they should answer the biographical questionnaire. He advertised the telephone conference process via text, emphasizing that it was for members only, and saying things like “If you don’t answer that your friends feel you are well respected you can cancel yourself out of this announcement.” He instructed people to mention that they were NBCFAE members, as he explained it, “so the FAA would know […] this applicant is being groomed […] by an […] FAA-approved and recognized association.” Our organization, he said, “wasn’t for Caucasians, it wasn’t for, you know, the white male, it wasn’t for an alien on Mars,” and he confirmed that he provided information “to minimize the competition.”14

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#40

Post by scott_w »

wand3r wrote: post #31
scott_w wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I’ve said twice now: it was the actual thing that was done (in this case, lowering standards and throwing qualified people to the wolves) that was lazy and stupid, not the umbrella “DEI” itself. That’s because the actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds is difficult and takes time. It’s things like outreach, financial support, changing societal attitudes. Instead of that, they took the lazy opt…

This is kind of like the argument that communism is great but no one has been able to implement it correctly yet. "Setting targets" having highly paid DEI consultants, and identity based hiring is what DEI is. Lowercase diversity and inclusion are good ideals, which I think is what you are saying. Uppercase DEI are the exact policies we are talking about here.

I’ve provided a list of DEI hiring policies that don’t fit into your list here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42945302

I said at the top of my thread that the refusal of people in power to engage with criticisms like this thoughtfully has allowed the far right to toxify these debates and I think the downvotes and responses to my comments are minor, but perfect, examples of my point. Instead of discussing the issues and how they should be fixed, the “debate” breaks down into “DEI bad” on your side and “saying DEI bad is racist/sexist/etc.” on the other side.

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