Are you afraid of flying? If you are, you may have good reason.
The Federal Aviation Administration under Barack Obama is putting “diversity” ahead of competence in its hiring of air-traffic controllers, which now must satisfy a race-based quota.
This dangerous experiment in the name of “equal opportunity” dates back to last June, when Peter Kirsanow, a Republican member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, outlined the palpable risks in a lengthy letter to Department of Transportation Administrator Michael Huerta. However, an op-ed in Sunday’s New York Post brings the folly once again to the forefront.
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The article focuses on Andrew Brigida, who earned two aviation-related B.S. degrees from the University of Arizona and took the demanding, eight-hour computer-based Air Traffic Selection and Training exam, scoring 100%.
That was in 2013. After the university sent his credentials to the FAA with a recommendation that he be hired, Brigida waited but initially heard nothing back from the government.
Then in January 2014, he received an email “form letter” reading:
Dear Applicant:
The [FAA] is implementing changes to improve and streamline the selection of [air-traffic controllers]. Your standing in our current applicant inventory is being impacted by these changes.
Specifically, the current applicant inventories, including your application, are in the process of being closed and will no longer be utilized … Any prior application that you submitted will no longer be considered.
The article notes that 2,000 to 3,000 other highly qualified applicants received the same form letter informing them that their names had been “purged” from the FAA’s list of candidates.
Brigida refused to take the news sitting down.
Late last year, as the lead plaintiff in a federal class-action lawsuit, he sued the FAA and other Obama administration agencies and officials.
You can be sure the administration will fight the suit, if necessary to the death.
But whose death?
