Lawsuit alleges FAA rejected 1,000 job seekers due to diversity rules amid staff shortages

The Federal Aviation Administration rejected 1,000 air traffic controller candidates because of their DEI policies, despite facing a shortage of staff, as stated in a lawsuit.

Concerns regarding the FAA’s hiring practices have resurfaced following a tragic incident involving American Airlines flight 5342 colliding with a helicopter over Washington DC, resulting in the loss of 67 lives.

In a legal case initiated in 2015, Andrew Brigida, the lead plaintiff at 35 years old, argued that the agency’s strong focus on DEI recruitment significantly increased the likelihood of an accident, a sentiment he echoed in an interview with The Telegraph on Thursday.

The FAA dropped a skills-based system for hiring air traffic controllers and instead based it on a ‘biographical assessment’ under the Obama administration.

Brigida, who is white, alleged that he was discriminated against based purely on his race and was the reason his application was knocked back. 

The Arizona state graduate was turned down for a job with the agency even though he had passed his training exam with full marks, the suit claims. 

The FAA has struggled in recent years with staffing issues following pandemic-era layoffs and has yet to fully recover. 

The lawsuit only compounds mounting criticism on the agency, especially after President Trump blamed DEI hiring policies on the cause of Wednesday’s crash. 

Andrew Brigida, 35, claims the agency’s obsession with DEI hiring was a catalyst in ensuring an accident was likely to happen

Complaints over the FAA’s hiring policies have resurfaced after American Airlines flight 5342 collided in midair with a helicopter over Washington DC , killing 67 people

Brigida, who now works for the agency as a program manager, told The Telegraph that years of diversity hiring meant it was just a matter of time before a major accident happened.

He said: ‘You want to hire the best and the brightest for this kind of job because it is a very stressful job and it can take a toll on you, age you prematurely. You want to make sure that the people that are doing it are the best.’ 

Brigida added: ‘[Trump] obviously sees the issue at hand and if he didn’t, I’m sure people that work in the Department of Transportation and the FAA informed him that there is an issue with staffing and air traffic control and I’m hoping they can work on it immediately.’

In Trump’s first term, lawyers for the Federal Transportation Department argued to throw out Brigida’s case. 

They said that deciding to open up applications for more diverse candidates isn’t solid enough grounds to file a discrimination suit. 

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act stops employers from discriminating on ‘race, color, religion, sex and national origin’.

In a 2020 motion filed by the government, they said: ‘An employer’s decision to broaden the pool of potential applicants between rounds of hiring is not a personnel action cognizable under Title VII.’

They added that Brigida can’t claim discrimination just because the new system no longer benefitted him.

They wrote: ‘Accordingly, even if Plaintiffs would have had an advantage if they applied under the old hiring process, Title VII does not give them a claim to seek to preserve that advantage.

‘Instead, Plaintiffs must show that the hiring process in which they actually participated discriminated against them on the basis of some protected characteristic.’

His lawsuit against the FAA is still ongoing, with the agency and Department of Transport due back in court next year to fight it. 

Following the horrifying scenes on Wednesday night, it has since emerged that there was staffing issues inside the control tower of Ronald Reagan National Airport. 

The FAA have found in their preliminary report that it was ‘not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic’. 

On Wednesday,  an air traffic controller was left to handle both helicopter traffic and manage planes – which should have been a divided duty – according to The New York Times. 

Those tasks are usually handled between two people from 10am until 9:30pm, according to the report. 

Pictured: Parts of the wreckage seen sitting in the Potomac River after Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday night, killing 67 people  

After 9:30pm the duties are typically combined and left to one person as the airport sees less traffic later in the night. 

A supervisor reportedly decided to combine those duties before the scheduled cutoff time however, and allowed one air traffic controller to leave work early. 

Reagan National has been understaffed for many years, with just 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023 – well below the target of 30 – according to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan submitted to Congress.

The situation appeared to have improved since then, as a source told CNN the Reagan National control tower was 85 percent staffed with 24 of 28 positions filled.

Chronic understaffing at air traffic control towers is nothing new, with well-known causes including high turnover and budget cuts.

In order to fill the gaps, controllers are frequently asked to work 10-hour days, six days a week.