In the latest twist in the DEI scandal that’s rocked the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic controller testing, a diversity activist was allegedly caught in a recorded message promising answers to a behavioral examination for prospective controllers — but only if they were minorities or women.
While rumors of the answers being leaked to the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees have been in the public domain since well before the DEI scandal burst following a collision between a jetliner and a military helicopter on the approach to Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., in January, the recording of Shelton Snow — a major figure in the NBCFAE — obtained by the U.K.’s Daily Mail seems to confirm those rumors.
“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,” Snow said in the message, first published Wednesday.
“I am about 99.99 percent sure that it is exactly how you need to answer each question,” he added.
“Washington Suburban associate members, brothers, and sisters … I know that each of you are eager, very eager to apply for this job vacancy … and trust that after tonight, you will be able to do so,” he said.
“I am asking that you … allow me to provide you with an email that will be extremely crucial in the opening stages of this hiring process,” he added.
“There is some valuable pieces of information that I have taken a screenshot of, and I’m going to send that to you via email. Trust and believe it will be something that you will appreciate to the utmost. Keep in mind, we are trying to maximize your opportunities.”
As the Daily Mail noted, the message came in 2014, after the Obama-era FAA “had controversially replaced its peer-reviewed cognitive exam with a ‘biographical’ quiz asking things like ‘how would you describe your ideal job’ and ‘classmates would remember me as humble or dominant?’
“Critics say the quixotic blend of multiple-choice questions was designed to screen out elite, mostly white students from FAA-accredited college courses who excelled in traditional aptitude tests,” the outlet noted. “Nonetheless, it was proving incredibly tricky for anyone to pass — with a 90 percent failure rate — when Snow decided to intervene.”
Should Snow be prosecuted for endangering public safety?
A Jan. 15, 2014 email from Snow, who was then president of the Washington Suburban chapter of the NBCFAE, laid out ways to stand out from the rest — including “buzz words” to be incorporated into applications.
“These buzzwords will flag your resume, thereby giving you the advantage over thousands of resumes that may flood the system,” he said.
Meanwhile, an agenda Snow set for a December 2013 “powwow” encouraged members to share that they were with the NBCFAE.
“This is for us to know who our people are in the case that we have one of our own on the board,” the agenda read.
“In the past we’ve always had one and they share our enthusiasm. Can you see the strategy.” [Emphasis and grammatical error his.]
Just in case you didn’t get the message: “We are only concerned about African-Americans, Women (of every ethnic background), and other minorities,” he said.
“Please ensure that you share this information with no one that is identified outside of that … this is to minimize competition.”
Snow, who still works for the FAA and was the NBCFAE’s northeast regional vice president, is now 50. He declined comment when contacted by the Daily Mail.
“With all due respect, I have no comment. Please do not call this phone again,” he said.
The clip had initially been leaked in part to media organizations in 2015, and a report by Fox Business pressured the FAA to investigate. Snow admitted he had a “walk through” via teleconference in order to explain “to each person how they should answer the questions.”
Nevertheless, the Department of Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General thought it didn’t merit charges or even impeding his career.
“The findings in this investigation did not warrant a referral to a federal prosecutor,” its 2016 findings read.
Now that we can hear exactly what he said on that voicemail, however, it starts to get a little more tricky.
For instance, he seems to directly tell members that he’s basically giving them the answers, not just guiding them in a direction: “I’m gonna send it to each of you and as you progress through the stages, refer to those images, so that you will know which icons you should select,” he said.
“Now I have a good mind to send it to one of my HR representatives first and give them the opportunity to sign off on it before you actually click it.
“But in the sake of time, I’m gonna send it directly to you because I’m about 99.99 percent sure that it’s exactly how you need to answer each question in order to get through the first phase.”
If this is what didn’t warrant being referred to a federal prosecutor, pray tell, what would?
And think: The men and women who were given these answers are in air traffic control towers across the United States at this very moment, perhaps going to guide the flight that you may be about to take, should you be reading this in an airport. Only we don’t know how many unqualified cheaters there are.
Sure, the FAA has ditched the personality test. Sure, this guy isn’t giving crib sheets anymore. It doesn’t make a difference. In this case, DEI literally could equal DIE. Never forget what our diversity, equity, and inclusion overlords were willing to subject you to in order to impose their idea of “fairness” on the world — including allowing what basically amounts to cheating on air traffic control exams.
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