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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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739 points firebaze | 7 comments | 05 Feb 25 05:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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wand3r ◴[05 Feb 25 06:24 UTC] No.42944621[source]▶
> I know, I know. The evidence is unambiguous that the bar was lowered, deliberately, over many years and with direct knowledge. The evidence is unambiguous that a cheating scandal occurred. The whole thing is as explosive as any I’ve seen, and it touches on a lot of long-running frustrations.

This is likely the most common complaint about DEI, it provides grounds for race based discrimination and lowers the bar. I am sure this was not the only government agency that did something like this and it will really hurt the Democrats chances of success for the future. Their core messaging has really boiled down to "black and brown people, women and LGBTQ are our constituency" and predictably this has turned a lot of people off the party. Especially since they haven't really delivered much even for these groups.

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scott_w ◴[05 Feb 25 06:49 UTC] No.42944818[source]▶
I don’t think DEI itself provides the grounds. It’s simply a case of DEI either being implemented in a lazy or stupid way to tick boxes OR it being used as cover by a small number of activists to engage in discrimination of their own. If DEI didn’t exist, the above things would still happen, just for a different reason and possibly different group of activists.
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ars ◴[05 Feb 25 07:21 UTC] No.42945046[source]▶
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".

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scott_w ◴[05 Feb 25 07:39 UTC] No.42945220[source]▶
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 option and just threw out white candidates from the pipeline. I also include “setting hiring targets” as a lazy and stupid way of “achieving DEI,” just for clarity.
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1. subpixel ◴[05 Feb 25 15:42 UTC] No.42950093{4}[source]▶
> That’s because the actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds is difficult and takes time

On the demand side (where placement or acceptance or hiring is contingent upon qualifications) the "actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds" cannot be done equitably.

Selective institutions are a reflection of the society from which they draw candidates. As society produces more kinds of qualified candidates, the makeup of selective organizations will change.

Change 'at the top' is a trailing indicator, it is the result of a process and not the start of one.

I don't even know what 'outreach' and 'financial support' mean in this context, but I disagree that societal attitudes must change more than they already are changing. In the US, people expect the most qualified candidates to get the job, and they (increasingly) reject discrimination on the basis of race and background. That is why they cry foul when systems and programs are put in place that discriminate against qualified applicants.

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2. scott_w ◴[05 Feb 25 16:13 UTC] No.42950614[source]▶
I put together some more concrete examples here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42945302

None of them are “programs that discriminate against qualified applicants.”

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3. naijaboiler ◴[05 Feb 25 23:05 UTC] No.42956648[source]▶
outreach and financial support means getting potentially qualified people in the piepeline much earlier in the process, by reaching out to potential and providing financial assistance for those who may not be have the finances.

In this example, before it was CTI schools that were providing most of the candidates. There's a lot of potentially qualified minorities who absolutely have no clue such schools or opportunities even exist, and a few who even if they knew were so financially disadvantaged to take care of the opportunities. Outreach in this case, will be combing high schools and making more people aware of the opportunities, and providing financial assistance for those who may be qualified but are too poor.

4. arp242 ◴[05 Feb 25 23:49 UTC] No.42957072[source]▶
> I don't even know what 'outreach' and 'financial support' mean in this context

Go to a predominantly black school/neighbourhood and hand out flyers with "hey, we have this great programme you should consider applying for!"

Provide financial support for candidates who cannot afford to go through the programme on their own means (which will be disproportionately, though not exclusively, from minority groups).

And generally, "most qualified candidate" doesn't really exist. Usually what you have is something like "50% clearly unqualified, 25% maybe, and 25% seems qualified" and that's it. Numbers vary and there are exceptions, but by and large, that's basically how it works. So you need a "tie-breaker", which is usually "person I got along with the best", which is just as biased as "person from $minority_group" as a tie-breaker.

Obviously things didn't go well at the FAA, but it really doesn't take that much imagination to come up with some basic measures that are reasonable and don't discriminate anyone.

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5. janalsncm ◴[06 Feb 25 01:31 UTC] No.42957855[source]▶
This works if your demand is small enough. In the case of the FAA they are hiring thousands of ATCs.

The fundamental issue is that due to upstream inequalities (e.g. worse schools) there are downstream inequalities you can’t smooth out. There are literally fewer black people who know how to read or have graduated high school. So the correct solution is to concentrate resources upstream.

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6. scott_w ◴[06 Feb 25 07:37 UTC] No.42960031{3}[source]▶
While I don’t disagree, we should remember a few things:

Diversity isn’t just about skin colour. Getting more women in expands opportunities for women, who still suffer pay gaps, and this would help close that.

Even black people who do have enough education suffer discrimination (conscious or not), so working to improve things is a net good.

That’s not to say the FAA did the right thing (it appears not) but it’s important to not just throw our hands up and keep saying it’s someone else’s problem!

7. nielsbot ◴[06 Feb 25 17:31 UTC] No.42964548[source]▶
Exactly. Needed a slightly more imaginative approach that this bad one they came up with. Would also be nice if this early outreach and assistance could be done on a wider scale, not just for air traffic controllers.