Federal Aviation Administration: Whites Need Not Apply

Good thing we have the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sure it tramples on fundamental liberties like freedom of association and allows the federal government to meddle in private relationships, but at least no one can be racially discriminated against – unless of course they belong to the majority population:

Thousands of potential FAA air traffic control trainees, with College Initiative Training (CTI) degrees or previous military experience, have been told by the federal agency they are no longer eligible for job interviews. Instead, the FAA has decided to accept less qualified applicants, apparently to satisfy concerns that the agency needs a more diverse workforce.

An aspiring air traffic controller tells a sad tale of trying to achieve by merit in a country run by liberals:

“We were told through the FAA, if you want to be a controller you need to go through one of our CTI-approved programs,” said CTI graduate Ryan Meryhew. …

CTI degree programs … are multi-year programs with top-notch simulators and air traffic control programs designed to train students to take the initial air traffic control test called the AT-SAT, which is required by the FAA to begin advanced training at the FAA academy.

“In school I did very well. I graduated with a 3.8 GPA. I passed the AT-SAT exam with a 99.5 percent, a near perfect score on the test that the FAA said you’ve got to pass,” said Meryhew. “I knew I had a passion for the position. It’s something that I wanted to do. I dedicated and put everything I had into the program.”

In the past, Ryan Meryhew would have been considered “highly qualified” for the FAA’s air traffic control program, and like veterans who had military traffic control experience, he would have been given preference in the hiring process.

But suddenly, earlier this year, thousands of students like Ryan were told they were no longer eligible to proceed with the application process. In February, the FAA ignored the pool of applicants waiting to be interviewed for air traffic control positions who had already graduated from school and passed the AT-SAT exam.

Priority for veterans and CTI graduates was no longer given. Instead, anyone interested in becoming an air traffic controller would be part of the same pool of applicants– a combination of “off the street hires” and those with specialized education or prior experience.

The initial hurdle for all applicants was based solely on a new, online biographical questionnaire that gave test takers instant results.

The biographical questionnaire includes nothing related to aviation. It is evidently intended to weed out applicants of politically disfavored racial groups – i.e., whites.

Professor Kevin Kuhlmann, a retired military pilot who teaches in the CTI program at Metro State … argues, as does the Association of CTI schools, that the FAA is taking less qualified applicants that have no clear aptitude for the job. In the end, they say, the policy will cost taxpayers millions.

This is because the qualified applicants have already paid for their own training, whereas the off-the-street Affirmative Action candidates have to be trained from scratch – and are likely to wash out if too much effort is involved.

Inevitably, there will also be a price in human lives.

You would think that with the stakes involved, the FAA would place a premium on competence. Or at least you would think that unless you consider that the F stands for “Federal” – and as far as the federal government is concerned, nothing whatsoever matters except left-wing ideology.

As the government grows, the private sector shrinks. With it shrinks the job prospects for those who would like to be hired for qualifications other than not being white.

On a tip from Smokey. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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