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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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739 points firebaze | 3 comments | 05 Feb 25 05:25 UTC | HN request time: 1.981s | source
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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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itronitron ◴[05 Feb 25 15:03 UTC] No.42949397[source]▶
It's a myth that the bar is lowered for DEI hires.
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kikokikokiko[dead post] ◴[05 Feb 25 15:27 UTC] No.42949831[source]▶
[flagged]
ryandrake ◴[05 Feb 25 15:54 UTC] No.42950298[source]▶
Why are you (and many others) just assuming the black candidate is less qualified?
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d1str0 ◴[05 Feb 25 16:17 UTC] No.42950692[source]▶
That’s literally what this whole article was about. Removing a high correlation performance test, that black candidates didn’t pass as frequently, and replacing it with a very low correlation questionnaire that provided a more diverse applicant pool while weeding out highly qualified individuals.
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1. kalensh ◴[05 Feb 25 17:47 UTC] No.42952292[source]▶
They still had to pass the performance test. It was just no longer the first step in the process. I want to be clear, that doesn't mean the questionnaire was a good thing. It just means that the questionnaire did not lower the bar.

Instead it reduced the applicant pool in a sudden and unfair manner, which is it's own issue.

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2. Devilspawn6666 ◴[05 Feb 25 23:54 UTC] No.42957117[source]▶
No, read the article again. They didn't need to pass the same test to the same degree - the criteria was also changed to have "qualified" and "well qualified".
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3. kalensh ◴[06 Feb 25 02:40 UTC] No.42958358[source]▶
It's worth nothing that this change happened before the questionnaire was instituted. (The paper referenced in the article was from 2006, I haven't dug enough to find a date for when this change was made, but the narrative in the article also establishes this act as happening in the '00s.) Additionally, from the Conclusions:

"Reweighting was based on data collected from incumbent ATCSs who took AT-SAT on a research basis; some of these employees achieved overall scores less than 70 (that was one of the reasons for the reweighting effort – a belief that incumbent employees should be able to pass the entry-level selection test)."

I don't think this proves that the update to the test was good or bad in overall competency, but I do think it's worth investigating if the test should be updated when existing employees are unable to pass.