The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) under President Joe Biden seeks to employ people with mental and physical impairments in its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiative.
The FAA is prioritizing hiring employees in air travel jobs who suffer from “targeted disabilities,” especially “severe intellectual” disabilities and psychiatric problems, according to the agency’s website.
“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 website says.
High-profile figures like Elon Musk have reacted unfavorably to the FAA’s DEI hiring practices. He responded to a social media post on Boeing CEOs and DEI goals, stating that “they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety.”
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
“Just had a conversation with some smart people could not believe this is happening,” Musk wrote on X on Monday.
Just had a conversation with some smart people could not believe this is happening https://t.co/fcu4MZ1l5O
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2024
The FAA’s “Diversity and Inclusion” hiring plan described people with targeted or severe disabilities as the most under-represented segment of the Federal workforce,” outlining its goal “to ensure that people with disabilities have equal Federal employment opportunities.” The FAA, overseen by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, works to recruit, hire, promote, retain and develop employees with disabilities over other demographics, according to the website, prioritizing disabled status over merit. (RELATED: ‘Stop Petro Pete’: Climate Protesters Rush Stage During Pete Buttigieg Forum)
Disabled people deemed “under-represented” may be “hired in an expedited manner,” the website states. The FAA’s DEI webpage was last updated on March 23, 2022.