The federal agency tasked with protecting America’s air travel is looking for a few good people with “severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism” in order to get the job done.
The Federal Aviation Administration is part of the sprawling federal Department of Transportation led by Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
In the “Diversity and Inclusion” section of its website, the FAA said it “actively recruits, hires, promotes, retains, develops and advances people with disabilities.”
“Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism,” the agency said, noting that managers can hire people with disabilities on the spot through a noncompetitive process.
Fox News asked the FAA about the approach.
“The FAA employs tens of thousands of people for a wide range of positions, from administrative roles to oversight and execution of critical safety functions,” the agency responded. “Like many large employers, the agency proactively seeks qualified candidates from as many sources as possible, all of whom must meet rigorous qualifications that of course will vary by position.”
The question of who is watching America’s skies was raised after a panel blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 in midflight on Jan. 5.
X CEO Elon Musk offered his thoughts on Boeing’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies Wednesday in a post on X that read, “Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening.”
Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening. https://t.co/FcTyzZD0uW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2024
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, who chairs Do No Harm — a group dedicated to protecting health care from “radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology” — found a similar challenge facing the aviation industry’s watchdog agency, he told Fox News.
Do you feel safe flying anymore?
“The aviation industry has a responsibility for traveler safety just as the health care industry has a responsibility for patient safety,” said Goldfarb, a retired professor and the former associate dean for curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
“These responsibilities outweigh other factors when considering applicants to work in those fields. People with disabilities who can successfully complete the task should never face discrimination,” he said.
Goldfarb said current policies are “creating opportunities for so-called oppressed groups by lowering standards for entry into those fields and thereby endangering the safety of those which it’s designed to serve. Some endeavors simply do not lend themselves to identity politics.”
The House Oversight subcommittee on national security, the border, and foreign affairs recently examined the extent to which that philosophy is eroding our national defense in a hearing titled “The Risks of Progressive Ideologies in the U.S. Military.”
In a statement posted on the panel’s website, its chairman, Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, said, “Our military is grappling with the Biden Administration’s social experiments of integrating principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion — or ‘DEI’ — into their ranks.”
🚨 Rep. Grothman opens hearing on “The Risks of Progressive Ideologies in the U.S. Military.”
“Our military is grappling with the Biden Administration’s social experiments of integrating principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion—or “DEI”—into their ranks.
“The Pentagon… pic.twitter.com/sA83Hpoiwo
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) January 11, 2024
“I have concerns with how the DEI bureaucracy implements an ideological agenda within the military framework that has the potential to divide instead of build up; a potential to harm unit cohesion and undermine our soldiers’ effectiveness,” he said.
“Our armed forces have long been a bastion of meritocracy, where individuals are evaluated and promoted based on their skills, competence, and dedication to duty,” Grothman said.
