The Daily Populous Saturday June 7th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by theatlantic.com and submitted by BreakfastTop6899

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When President Donald Trump blamed diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for the deadly January crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, some aviation officials were appalled. Some were simply perplexed. But few officials inside the Federal Aviation Administration took the president’s remarks seriously.

Not so for the political leadership of the Department of Transportation. The FAA’s parent agency agreed in March to spend as much as $2.1 million on an investigation into DEI policies and their impact on recent safety incidents. To conduct that investigation, the Trump administration has turned to Alex Spiro, a former prosecutor and a prominent defense attorney who has represented Elon Musk, among other billionaires and celebrities.

I obtained the “scope of work” document for Spiro’s investigation, which is marked “privileged” and “confidential” and has not been previously reported. It shows how the president’s musings—his accusations, he said at the time, were based on “very strong opinions and ideas”—translate into taxpayer-funded government action. It also reveals the cost of the administration’s fixation on DEI at a time when the FAA is struggling to hire and retain air-traffic controllers, linchpins of aviation safety, and when Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, is seeking funds to overhaul the country’s antiquated air-traffic-control system. Recent radar outages at Newark Liberty International Airport have caused severe flight delays and spotlighted just how deep technology and staffing problems run.

The investigation by Spiro, a partner at the elite firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, is due to conclude soon, a person familiar with the dynamics told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the confidentiality of the work. Contrary to what Trump may hope, it’s not expected to find that programs aimed at ensuring representation for women and people of color are responsible for this year’s string of aviation disasters, including the January crash at Reagan airport, which killed 67 people and prompted Trump’s tirade against DEI.

That determination, several air-traffic controllers told me, hardly required a multimillion-dollar probe. It’s true that past FAA hiring practices have been controversial. A biographical questionnaire introduced in 2014 as part of an effort to increase the diversity of the applicant pool faced criticism from candidates who said they’d lost out on jobs because they didn’t fit a preferred profile. It was scrapped by Congress in 2018. Even if diversity preferences influence which candidates are sent to air-traffic facilities—“unlikely,” as one controller put it to me—those candidates still have to be trained and recommended for certification by their peers and monitored by a supervisor, the controller said. Controllers have little incentive to recommend someone who isn’t qualified, because that person could wind up next to them, jointly responsible for keeping planes in the air. “If that person can’t do the job, they aren’t making it through the hiring process,” this controller told me.

Another controller put it more bluntly, calling the investigation a “waste of money.” The controller pointed to severe strains on the workforce following a series of disturbing incidents caused by communications breakdowns and other disruptions, which led multiple controllers to request trauma leave. He told me, “That’s $2 million that could have gone toward pain-and-suffering raises for controllers.”

The scope-of-work document outlines exactly what the money is buying the government. Interviews with 10 to 15 “key stakeholders” were estimated to cost as much as $150,000 (“includes preparation and documentation of findings”), statistical analysis another $100,000 (“examination of data by expert statistician”). Finally, the cost of legal analysis was expected to total up to $1,800,000, covering document and data collection and examination as well as “legal memorandum preparation.”

The investigation seeks to answer several questions: what DEI policies exist, how they influence the hiring of air-traffic controllers, and whether there’s a link between DEI practices and recent safety incidents. To answer these questions, the firm said it would commit a team, including four former federal prosecutors with experience conducting investigations.

The investigation could end up costing the government more than the expected $2.1 million. Spiro’s outline indicates that each additional week of work, beyond the anticipated two to three weeks, is estimated to add $200,000 to $300,000 in fees. Each additional interview required for the probe will also cost $10,000 to $15,000.

In a statement, a DOT spokesperson said “there is no price on safety.”

“We launched this investigation because of DEI and cheating allegations inside the air traffic control organization,” the spokesperson, Nate Sizemore, added. “It’s a shame that the Atlantic thinks that should be dismissed.”

The scope-of-work document was addressed to Pete Meachum, the chief of staff at the Department of Transportation and a former congressional aide to Duffy. A Wisconsin Republican, Duffy left Congress in 2019 to work as a lobbyist and a Fox Business co-host. Duffy was confirmed as Trump’s transportation secretary on January 28. A day later, he signed what the department called a “Woke Rescission” memo, directing various offices to “identify and eliminate all Biden-era programs, policies, activities, rules, and orders that promote climate change activism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, racial equity, gender identity policies, environmental justice, and other partisan objectives.” That was the same day that American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a U.S. Army helicopter near Reagan airport. Trump promptly blamed past Democratic presidents for the crash, suggesting that they had lowered standards for key aviation roles. “We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system,” he said.

In a Fox interview following the crash, Duffy seemed to endorse the president’s comments about DEI, saying, “You can’t focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion when you try to hire air-traffic controllers. You focus on the best and the brightest.”

A shortage of controllers means that the best and the brightest have been working long hours under stressful conditions, made worse by the departure of hundreds of FAA employees in crucial support roles who have accepted the government’s offer of early retirement. Duffy told Congress last month that his department “can do more with less,” suggesting that savings from staff reductions could be used to fund overdue infrastructure upgrades. And apparently investigations into DEI, as well.

SpasmAndOrGasm on June 6th, 2025 at 18:56 UTC »

Nathan Fielder already answered this question

iballguy on June 6th, 2025 at 18:54 UTC »

Everybody knows it's because the copilot is too uncomfortable to speak up.

powercow on June 6th, 2025 at 18:51 UTC »

Republicans really think its a quota system.

and republicans really think corps all adopted "harmful to their business DEI" without a single law or regulation requiring it.. all because they wanted to look good to left wingers.

NO they would fucking sell pride cups, not hire unqualified people just to make the left happy. Why dont they all advertise they have DEI? "come shop here we got a DEI program" Because its nothing to do with customers being happy.

the main reason corps DEI and why it will continue even if called something else. Is it GREATLY reduces liability from discrimination lawsuits. It raises the bar of proof. Thats why corps adopted it without any regs, it literally saves them money.