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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#311

Post by adamrezich »

programjames wrote: post #282
adamrezich wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that always made this obviously insane for any systems-thinking person is as follows: For the sake of the argument, assume that X, Y, and Z all have ~100% equal preference for positions A, B, and C at a given company or organization, and assume that it is merely “historical/institutional discrimination” that has led to X, Y, and Z percentages of A, B, and C failing to match X, Y, and Z population percentages…

This is where the "critical mass" argument comes in: you (allegedly) need people who superficially look like you in the roles to inspire you to learn the skills needed for that position. Thus, working to correct poor education due to systemic racism isn't enough, you need to also temporarily fill role-model positions with less-qualified candidates.

And this argument reveals the grotesque truth of the matter: it's not actually about ensuring that everyone is treated equally and fairly—it's actually about socially engineering segments of the population other than one's own, to act in accordance with one's wishes, such that one feels good about oneself. This is all done utterly selfishly and self-servingly, regardless of not only whatever said population segments actually desire for themselves, but also regardless of potential nth-order consequences of these actions for the rest of society.

Additionally, in acting this way, one unwittingly (I hope!) infantilizes these other population segments, robbing them of agency and self-determination in the process!

The whole thing is a complete mess, top-to-bottom—and, as a society, we are long overdue in reevaluating this entire line of thinking and how willfully we accept it at face value.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#312

Post by apical_dendrite »

Manuel_D wrote: post #255
apical_dendrite wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge that was not recorded anywhere. However there are interviews with participants on the call: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17Vi9dDtZvbwHDafrygRG... One of the reasons why I think he was bullshitting was that according to the testimony, he said to answer the question about how many sports you played in high school honestly, but that wast the wrong information because that one of the questions w…

> he said to answer the question about how many sports you played in high school honestly, but that was one of the questions where some answers would give you more points than others. That's exactly what is alleged: Snow told applicants which answers were worth the most points. This is what Snow himself claimed, too. And the FAA's internal investigation did have witnesses say that they were instructed on how to respo…

Right, my point is that instead of providing the answer that would get the applicant the most points, he told them to answer honestly. That doesn't make sense if his goal was to cheat.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#313

Post by drivebyhooting »

hitekker wrote: post #196

For those curious, you can try the FAA's air traffic controller test for yourself here: https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/ After trying it, I recommend reading the article for yourself.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

How can an agency administer that travesty of a test? Heads should be rolling over this.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#314

Post by ein0p »

> In a moment of dark irony, the sort of diversity-focused work she’s passionate about—not lowering the bar, but inspiring more people and providing them with mentorship and opportunity to reach it

Discrimination by race, gender and sexual orientation (aka DEI, jokingly disabbreviated as "didn't earn it") always results in lowering the bar. No exceptions. Either the candidate earns a position fair and square, in which case you don't need "DEI", or you are discriminating against someone else more deserving, and therefore lowering the bar overall. What's ironic is this is setting minorities back decades. In 2000 nobody cared what color you were or whether you had a penis. In 2025 the assumption is that a minority is a "DEI hire" unless proven otherwise. And bah gawd there are real exemplars out there to support that narrative.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#315

Post by aydyn »

ryandrake wrote: post #151
aydyn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didnt call you a liar, I am claiming that people are not always truthful to themselves. Purposeful ignorance is an easy out. For example, you made a factually incorrect claim about blind hiring, and its considerably easier to ignore that since addressing it devastates your larger point.

He told you something he personally did/witnessed, and you replied with "not true." I'm not sure how else he should have interpreted that.

I think he truly believes it, but given the totality of his post it's very likely wrong. I'm not saying he is lying or a liar.

Again:

> blind reviews where you can’t see the name or details of the applicant (to minimise subconscious bias).

Its been shown that doing so _increases_ the amount of non-minority candidates selected, not the other way around.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#316

Post by [deleted] »

gadders wrote: post #207
ryandrake wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've always thought it simply meant "drawing from the widest possible candidate funnel, including instead of excluding people who have traditionally been shut out." I don't think anyone objects to that, but the unspoken part that seemed to be enforced was "...even if it means lowering standards and overlooking the best qualified candidates for the job, as long as we get kudos for meeting our diversity targets."

[deleted]

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#317

Post by drivebyhooting »

saynay wrote: post #294
gadders wrote: post #179

This is so depressing. This is the sort of DEI effort that gives the rest a bad name. It should never, ever be about hard quotas. It absolutely should be about using some contextual information (factoring the person's school environment in) and challenging assumptions about stereotypes so that you are not deciding who is best on assumptions but on evidence.

Honestly, quotas would probably have been better than what was done here. Inventing a test (or 'questionnaire' as it was called here) where the goal was to filter out almost everyone who did not have the answer key, then only giving that answer key to the preferred race is just such a terrible way to do it.

“Such a terrible way to do it” is a huge understatement.

It is so beyond egregious it should be criminal. And that’s no hyperbole.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#318

Post by thijson »

dbspin wrote: post #73
scott_w wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Blind reviews (and even interviews) are great ways of making hiring more fair. They are explicitly the inverse of DEI approaches. DEI is predicated on outcome diversity, rather than treating applicants equally irrespective of background. That's the E and I part. The entire premise is that certain groups require special support (fair - e.g.: blind people, wheel chair users), and have been historically excluded because…

Your mention of blind reviews reminds me of a social experiment I read about several years ago. All of this is anecdotal though. The article was written by someone that administered a web site that paired candidates with employers. Employers would conduct a phone screen via the web site to choose candidates. The web site saw that females had a lower chance of being selected, and based on the assumption that it was their gender being the reason, decided change the pitch of voices to mask their gender. This experiment actually backfired and lowered the chance of women being hired though. The author's conclusion in the end was that women had a lower chance of being hired because they gave up too easily, they couldn't handle rejection as well as men.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#319

Post by thijson »

thijson wrote: post #318
dbspin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blind reviews (and even interviews) are great ways of making hiring more fair. They are explicitly the inverse of DEI approaches. DEI is predicated on outcome diversity, rather than treating applicants equally irrespective of background. That's the E and I part. The entire premise is that certain groups require special support (fair - e.g.: blind people, wheel chair users), and have been historically excluded because…

Your mention of blind reviews reminds me of a social experiment I read about several years ago. All of this is anecdotal though. The article was written by someone that administered a web site that paired candidates with employers. Employers would conduct a phone screen via the web site to choose candidates. The web site saw that females had a lower chance of being selected, and based on the assumption that it was th…

https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/06/30/2035225/women-inter...

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#320

Post by burnished »

timewizard wrote: post #224
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…

> be extra wary of stories like this being massaged. I'm wary of all stories. This is Hacker News. Why wouldn't "critical analysis" be the default?

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