The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

> 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.

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.

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 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.

> 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.