A conservative legal group is pressing for answers as the Biden administration avoids its effort to find out if race is still a factor in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) hiring policy.

William Trachman, general counsel for the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), filed an appeal Wednesday over the FAA’s refusal to expedite his Freedom of Information Act request seeking information on the agency’s use of race in hiring and training, according to the letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The agency’s denial to expedite the May 8 FOIA request said there was not a “compelling need based on imminent threat to life or physical safety to an individual,” but Trachman wrote that this “erroneous” conclusion “fails to take into account the life-or-death nature of air travel.”

“The Biden Administration doesn’t see the connection between passenger safety and the need for merit-based hiring in aviation,” Trachman told the DCNF. “They don’t even want to answer open records requests about their DEI training and hiring policies for air traffic controllers. But given the Biden Administration’s obsession with race, we need know—and as soon as possible—whether DEI is still a major factor in hiring at the FAA.”

MSLF’s class action case against the FAA, which has been ongoing for nearly a decade, challenges the agency’s decision to pivot in 2013 from a merit-based hiring process for air traffic controllers to a process aimed at increasing racial diversity.

The agency introduced a “biographical questionnaire,” which awarded the high points for answers like scoring the lowest grade in high school in “science” or being employed “fewer than 10 hours” a week in college. While Congress required the FAA to stop using the assessment in 2018, plaintiffs of the lawsuit, which is set for trial in 2025, include nearly 1,000 otherwise qualified applicants who were turned down because they didn’t pass the biographical screening.

“Based on its prior misconduct with respect to using Biographical Assessments in hiring, I have reason to suspect that the FAA has recently adopted ‘personality tests’ and other ‘diversity’ measures as a way of attempting to racially balance the workforce of Air Traffic Controllers, and skirt Congressional directives to stop using Biographical Assessments,” Trachman wrote in the appeal letter Wednesday. “As I note above, while individuals of any race may be successful Air Traffic Controllers, anything less than race neutrality is both unlawful and dangerous.” (RELATED: ‘Listen To The Screams’: Planes Nearly Collide On Reagan Airport Runway)

Wonder why air travel seems less safe? @MSLF and I are suing the @FAANews on behalf of 900 qualified applicants for past race discrimination in hiring Air Traffic Controllers.

The FAA was awarding bonus points for applicants who said they were bad at math!

And more … pic.twitter.com/nfXTrC9vVl

— Adam Paul Laxalt (@AdamLaxalt) April 26, 2024

The appeal letter cites a recent op-ed by MSLF co-counsel and former Republican Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who argued recent safety incidents — including two near collisions at New York City’s John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport and one at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport just this year — stem from a shortage of qualified air traffic controllers.

“If the FAA is using race in its screening mechanisms, or creating a hostile work environment for some of its employees based on race, it is hardly any wonder why such a practice could lead to a shortage—qualified applicants are screened out or pushed out, while applicants who would otherwise not obtain jobs are less likely to succeed and continue on as Air Traffic Controllers,” Trachman explained in the letter.

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