There has been a lot of worry about the DEI push in aviation. Boeing has made a big deal about their DEI push, and their record ain’t so hot lately.

The airlines have been bragging about how “diverse” they are, although “diverse” has an odd definition if it means that flight crews are all of one sex.

But as scary as you might find the emphasis of these companies on hiring based on race, sexuality and gender, they don’t seem to have adopted the Biden Administration FAA’s emphasis on hiring the psychiatrically disabled and intellectually deficient.

HOLY SH*T. People with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities will be in charge of your air travel because of diversity quotas.

DEI will get people killed. pic.twitter.com/elPAGM5OKc

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 14, 2024

Of course, the story is just too juicy to check, so I decided to check it just in case. And, it turns out that, indeed, the FAA’s DEI webpage does make clear that they are actively recruiting severely mentally ill people because they are underrepresented.

Not only that, they can be hired on the spot in a noncompetitive process because the FAA is so desperate to fill out the ranks.

People with Disabilities

Individuals with targeted or “severe” disabilities are the most under-represented segment of the Federal workforce. The People with Disabilities Program (PWD) ensures that people with disabilities have equal Federal employment opportunities. The FAA actively recruits, hires, promotes, retains, develops and advances people with disabilities.

The FAA meets the goals of the PWD Program through a variety of practices:

Targeted 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.

On-the-Spot Hiring
A non-competitive hiring method for filling vacancies with Veterans and/or individuals with disabilities. Managers can choose to fill an open position through the On-the-Spot hiring process given they provide the required documentation for doing so.

Adding in dwarfism is a really nice touch. I had never thought about the barriers to employment that dwarves face, to my eternal discredit.

Fox notes the obvious: everybody is paying a lot of attention to Pete Buttigieg’s FAA as it has not exactly covered itself in glory. Near misses both in the air and on the ground and airline safety issues make people nervous, with reason.

In case you’re wondering what @Alaskaair has been focusing on, it’s diversity & inclusion, making their planes gay, and having drag queen flight attendants.

If you’re on an Alaska plane, just pray their diversity hires don’t screw up and they’re putting this same energy into… pic.twitter.com/xg41yL9UYQ

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 11, 2024

Given recent events, it isn’t exactly comforting to see that the FAA is spending its time seeking out paralyzed people to employ, or scouring the United States for the intellectually disabled to run our Air Traffic Control system. Or worse, the psychiatrically disabled, who probably shouldn’t be anywhere near our airlines.

No doubt this program is driven from the top down; I can’t imagine that somebody who has reached a management position at the FAA is excited to hire a blind, paralyzed, mentally ill, intellectually disabled, one-armed dwarf as an air traffic controller.

But apparently, Pete Buttigieg is encouraging him to do so.

CEO of @united says he takes race and gender into account when hiring and laments that there’s too many white males in the airline industry. pic.twitter.com/NSEPzAuqZS

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 15, 2024

There are real-world consequences when managers take their eye off the ball, even if they want to keep doing their jobs as they should. No doubt career advancement is at least partially based on meeting goals, and even the most responsible managers will have to walk a fine line when hiring.

This is a distraction in an industry where the fewer distractions the better.

Vote like you life depends on it, because in a real sense it does.