Transportation Department Hires Outside Law Firm to Investigate Air Traffic Controller DEI Practices

Secretary Duffy is also cooperating with plaintiffs in lawsuit claiming FAA denied employment to qualified air traffic controller applicants

The Department of Transportation is ramping up its investigation into internal practices put in place years ago that allegedly prioritized DEI over merit when hiring air traffic controllers, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday that he retained the California-based white-shoe law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to further review the allegations, which the Transportation Department said “raise serious concerns about fairness, integrity, and public safety in our air traffic control towers.” Duffy separately requested the agency’s top watchdog conduct its own investigation of the matter in a memo obtained by the Free Beacon.

The investigations represent a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind DEI practices among air traffic controllers and gut existing DEI programs across the government. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to remove DEI programs “in areas ranging from airline safety to the military.”

Duffy’s actions come two months after a regional jet approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport collided with a military helicopter, killing dozens. Following the crash, Trump suggested the Federal Aviation Administration’s DEI hiring programs may have played a role.

“There is no place in air traffic control for box checker, DEI hires,” Duffy said in a statement Monday. “We owe it to the American people to ensure that only the best and brightest are in our towers—regardless of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. Too many lives are at stake.”

“These investigations will help the Department get to the bottom of these allegations,” he continued. “If true, I will carry out swift accountability. I will always put the safety of passengers and crews first.”

Earlier this month, a leaked recording indicated that FAA supervisor Shelton Snow, a former leader of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees, provided minority candidates with test answers in advance of a critical air traffic controller exam in 2014.

“I am about 99.99 percent sure that it is exactly how you need to answer each question,” Snow allegedly stated in the recording, which was first obtained by the Daily Mail. “There are some valuable pieces of information that I have taken a screenshot of and I am going to send that to you via email.”

Duffy requested the investigations review why Snow remained at the agency following his actions and assess whether any DEI practices are still being used in the air traffic controller hiring process.

In 2013, the Obama administration scrapped its air traffic controller skill-based hiring practices, which had been in place for decades, to base hiring on a “biographical questionnaire” designed to screen out candidates who aren’t minorities. That questionnaire, for example, asked how many high school sports candidates participated in and the age they first started to earn income.

Those DEI hiring practices led to a federal class action complaint in 2015. Plaintiffs argued they were denied air traffic controller positions despite their qualifications because they were not minorities. The court then ruled the case could proceed in May 2021, finding that plaintiffs plausibly alleged they were applicants who were subjected to an adverse employment action.

The lawsuit, which purports to represent nearly 1,000 qualified air traffic controller applicants denied employment, remains ongoing—the Biden administration defended its hiring practices and withheld more than 15,000 documents related to the case during a multi-year discovery process. Duffy, however, joined plaintiffs in issuing a joint motion to stay the case last week to pursue a non-judicial resolution of the matter.