Watch Karoline Leavitt Take Apart DEI : This May Have Been the Single Best Line in the History of WH News Briefings

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the ongoing discussion surrounding whether DEI policies at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) played a role in Wednesday’s fatal airline crash. Speaking to reporters on Friday, she broke down the issue to its core.

Leavitt found herself defending President Donald Trump’s assertion that a reduction in air traffic controller standards under the Obama and Biden administrations may have contributed to the collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.

She pointed to an established fact: in 2015, numerous aspiring air traffic controllers filed lawsuits against the Department of Transportation and the FAA due to the introduction of a biographical questionnaire in the application process—an element of DEI policy.

According to the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which led the lawsuit, “The Obama administration dropped a skill-based system for selecting and hiring air traffic controllers (ATCs), and replaced it with a new system designed to favor applicants on the basis of their race. It makes no sense. Worse yet, it is illegal and unconstitutional.”

The organization further argued, “The FAA purged its system of thousands of previously qualified, ready-to-hire applicants simply because they did not fit the right biographical profile. The government endangered public safety and owes restitution for this grave injustice.”

While referencing the lawsuit—originally filed during the Obama administration—Leavitt directed her comments toward the Biden administration.

She elaborated, “If you are an American who has spent many years studying aviation and you graduate from school and you’re an air traffic controller, based on skill and merit, and then you apply for a job, and are forced to fill out a biographical questionnaire asking you the color of your skin and asking you where you’re from and details that aren’t relevant at all to the job description, I think that deteriorates the morale of people in this industry.”

Leavitt essentially argued that qualified candidates were being denied positions in air traffic control solely due to their race.

“That’s unacceptable,” she stated.

She then delivered a striking remark, asking reporters, “When you are flying on an airplane with your loved ones, which every one of us in this room has, do you pray that your plane lands safely and gets you to your destination, or do you pray that your pilot has a certain skin color? I think we all know the answer to that question, and as President Trump said yesterday, it’s common sense.”

Few could dispute that logic—when it comes to air travel, passengers care about competence, not identity.

In a 2018 interview on Fox News, aviation attorney and former air traffic controller Michael Pearson, who represented the plaintiffs in the FAA lawsuit, provided further insight.

Pearson recalled, “In late 2011, early 2012, members of the National Black Controllers Association had a meeting with the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Jesse Jackson and some high-level [Department of Transportation] and FAA officials. Michael Huerta [then head of the FAA] was part of those meetings. … And right after that meeting, the FAA put an immediate hold on hiring. They stopped hiring.”

He argued that the biographical questionnaire added to the hiring process failed to assess an applicant’s capability as an air traffic controller.

“The creator [of the test] actually notified the FAA of that, and they used it anyway. In effect, that test punished people with any aviation knowledge, any air traffic control experience, any aviation experience, any science experience,” Pearson said.

Following a series of near-miss incidents at Reagan National and Baltimore-Washington International Airport in February of last year, The Washington Times editorial board examined the implications of lowering air traffic controller standards.

The Times cited a 2013 FAA document titled “Controller Hiring by the Numbers,” which posed the question, “How much of a change in job performance is acceptable to achieve what diversity goals?”

The outlet noted that in 2012, the FAA temporarily halted hiring and replaced its race-blind selection process with the “biographical assessment” approach aimed at increasing minority representation.

“More than 3,000 top-performing, motivated applicants lost out because they weren’t members of this ethnic club,” the Times reported.

Many of those who had excelled in the AT-SAT, the aptitude test for air traffic controllers, but failed under the “biographical assessment,” later pursued legal action.

“After Congress forced the FAA to drop the quiz in 2018, many former applicants reapplied and have since become controllers. Their careers were set back several years for no good reason,” the Times stated.

Pearson reiterated his concerns on Fox News Thursday night in relation to the American Airlines crash, stating, “This is a preventable disaster. … The system has been under attack through the DEI and the FAA bowing to wokeness since 2010 — since the Obama administration.”

He concluded, “The lack of staffing is directly attributable to the Obama administration.”

Both Leavitt and Trump have maintained that a merit-based hiring system for air traffic controllers is necessary to ensure safety and efficiency in aviation.