Jose Gonzalez-Campelo/The Cougar
On Jan. 30, an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with a passenger jet in the airspace of Washington, D.C., resulting in the deaths of over 60 people. Since the crash, which has been followed by several others, President Donald Trump has placed blame on diversity initiatives by his predecessors.
It goes without saying that these tragedies are much more nuanced than this outrageous claim. Further, it’s extremely dangerous for someone in office, let alone the President, to hold such sentiments.
In the news conference following the collision, Trump claimed, “I put safety first, Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first.” This was in reference to DEI programs instated by the previous presidents.
When pressed on if the crash was a result of diversity hiring, Trump said, “It could have been,” and that where his administration seeks to hire those with high intellect, “Biden went by a standard that seeks the exact opposite.”
This, to put it simply, is absurd. During this conference, the President made several false or misleading claims concerning diversity initiatives, including that people with severe psychological and intellectual disabilities can become air traffic controllers.
These statements singling out disabled workers did nothing but stigmatize people who are more than capable of going through the same training as their non-disabled counterparts. The program he was referring to in listing targeted disabilities was established during his own first term and served to prepare disabled people for careers in air traffic control.
Per the Federal Aviation Administration’s own website, the candidates of this program were to be upheld to the same standards as any other applicants. This includes aptitude tests and medical reviews that every controller must go through, proving that if they are to be hired, they meet the rigorous standards needed for the job.
Trump also stated that some within the FAA determined the workforce was “too white,” which has since been fact-checked and found false. No such statement was ever publicly made.
Despite this, President Trump is free to make these outrageous claims with no consequences, vilifying disabled and other marginalized people as if they’re incapable of qualifying for their chosen careers. This, of course, has led to his own supporters becoming more comfortable with repeating these ideas despite there being no evidence to support them.
Even if cutting diversity initiatives wasn’t a problem in itself, this consistent belittling of minorities feeds into the hatred that many of Trump’s supporters have expressed. This has been an issue since his first term, and it’s not entirely unfounded to say that the spike in hate crimes following it were linked to his supporters growing bold from his own claims.
Trump’s attitude towards a more diverse workforce and minorities as a whole has catered to extreme racist ideologies since day one. To put it simply, it’s fear-mongering. In fueling white grievances that people of color and other marginalized people are “stealing” from the white populace of America, these exact minorities have become more unsafe and at risk of being discriminated against.
DEI did not cause the plane collision early this year. Nor did it cause any of the others since then, and it’s unbecoming of someone of Trump’s status to so outwardly imply this.
If anything, Trump’s own orders had a hand in these tragedies, as he fired members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee about a week before the crash on Jan. 29. This committee was charged with finding safety issues among airlines.
And yet, disabled people and democratic administrations are supposedly at fault.
These attacks on DEI have created a looming shadow over every career path, and if the past two months are anything to go by, marginalized people will continue to see the same blame cast upon them.
As the president, Donald Trump has a responsibility to hold himself in a manner befitting of his station. Singling out minorities for supposedly causing disasters helps no one, and will only plunge America deeper into division while hurting those targeted.
Parker H-B is a journalism sophomore who can be reached at [email protected]
