Free Republic

Some aviation experts argue the FAA’s focus on ‘diversity’ instead of ’merit' in hiring pilots and controllers is leading to serious safety concerns... As the U.S. Justice Department decides whether to pursue a criminal case against Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating dozens of airplane incidents since January, including one in which a Swiss Air jet almost collided with four other planes on the runway at JFK International Airport in New York City. The FAA has more than 100 aviation accidents and incidents since the beginning of 2024. These include airplane and helicopter crashes, equipment and mechanical malfunctions,...

Peter Robinson, Uncommon Knowledge: After growing up in Harlem, Thomas Sowell served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War, then received an undergraduate degree from Harvard, a master’s degree from Columbia, and a doctorate from the University of Chicago. After teaching at universities that included Cornell, Brandeis, and UCLA, Dr. Sowell became a fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1977. Thomas Sowell is the author of some forty books, including his newest volume, Social Justice Fallacies. And this past spring, he turned ninety-three. Tom, welcome back. Thomas Sowell: Oh, good being here. Robinson: Dr. Martin Luther King...

On June 29, 2023, a Twitter account called “Erica Marsh” tweeted the following:“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a direct attack on Black people. No Black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system which is exactly why affirmative-action based programs were needed. Today’s decision is a TRAVESTY!!!”Link to original: https://twitter.com/ericareport/status/1674453321078415362Link to archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230629201916/https://twitter.com/ericareport/status/1674453321078415362Here’s screenshot:I can’t tell if this is a real liberal, or a conservative troll trying to make fun of liberals.Of course, regular readers of my blog know that I disagree with the comment. I have always been in favor of high academic standards, and encouraged...

NY Times columnist Pamela Paul writes today about disturbing evidence that science won’t be spared from the long march of identity politics through our institutions. A group of 29 scientists including two Nobel laureates collaborated on a paper titled “In Defense of Merit in Science,” but major science journals rejected it.A paper published last week, “In Defense of Merit in Science,” documents the disquieting ways in which research is increasingly informed by a politicized agenda, one that often characterizes science as fundamentally racist and in need of “decolonizing.” The authors argue that science should instead be independent, evidence-based and focused...

Before its collapse Friday, wokesterism surrounded Silicon Valley Bank like a miasma.The wokesterly attentiveness didn't per se destroy that mid-sized bank, given that most banks play these games and the big ones are very loud about it.As I noted earlier, Johns Hopkins University professor of economics, Steve Hanke, put his finger on the problem more precisely in an email:[T]he real SVB issue was terrible banking and risk management that resulted in a massive duration mismatch between SVB's liabilities (read: deposits) and its assets (read: long-dated bonds). The mismatch was stupidly not hedged. SVB was a poorly run bank, a disaster...

Our government is playing with our lives as it prefers diversity, equity, and inclusion over ensuring the best qualified employees are hired. A recent epidemic of airline near misses deserves both attention and reflection. In mid-December, a San Francisco-bound United Airlines Boeing 777-200 airliner, just a little over a minute after taking off from Maui, Hawaii, suddenly dived. It lost more than half its altitude and came within 800 feet of crashing into the Pacific Ocean before pulling up. About a month later, an American Airlines jet crossed the runway at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport just...

On Tuesday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson drew attention to the dark side of the left’s prioritization of equity over merit in corporate hiring decisions. And nowhere is this growing trend more frightening — and potentially deadly — than in the airline industry. In the video below, he pointed out that airlines are “dramatically lowering hiring standards for pilots and for air traffic controllers” and warned that “at some point, many people are going to die” as a result. Carlson described several “near disasters” that have occurred in just the past few months that should have all Americans concerned...

For years, two administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) have been withholding notifications of National Merit awards from the school’s families, most of them Asian, thus denying students the right to use those awards to boost their college-admission prospects and earn scholarships. This episode has emerged amid the school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned...

The American Bar Association is under fire after taking steps to abandon LSAT entrance exam scores as a law school admissions requirement after a study showed that minority applicants score lower. The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar approved the proposed standards revision earlier this month.The proposed change now goes to the association's policy-making body, the House of Delegates, for review in February. "But final approval to change ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools rests with the council, which serves as an independent arm of the ABA for...

Professors from the University of Arizona and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs are arguing that "success and merit" are "barriers" to the equity agenda.“Admitting that the normative definitions of success and merit are in and of themselves barriers to achieving the goals of justice, diversity, equity and inclusion is necessary but not sufficient to create change,” professors Beth Mitchneck and Jessi L. Smith recently wrote for Inside Higher Education.Mitchneck and Smith attributed those definitions to a "narrow definition of merit limited to a neoliberal view of the university." Specifically, they express concern that universities receive funding and recognition based...

Chief of naval personnel Vice Adm. John Nowell Jr. wants to resume the practice of including photos of officers up for promotion in the information packets reviewed by selection boards. “The premise that excluding photos would combat racism in the decisions on who would be promoted isn’t working,” the Admiral said. Photos were excluded under the orders of former Defense Secretary Mark Esper in July of 2020 to “prevent discrimination, prejudice and bias and promote equal opportunity, morale and the readiness of the force.” “I understand the intent was to reduce the chances for race to influence the decisions on...

Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life—money, power, jobs, university admission—should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the ‘even playing field’ upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events. Most people don’t...

One of the top-performing public high schools in the country will no longer admit students based on academic performance, ending more than a century of merit-based admissions. The San Francisco Board of Education voted 5-2 to use the same lottery-based system to assign students to Lowell High as other district high schools instead of maintaining the previous system of test scores and grades. Board members cited “pervasive systemic racism” and a lack of diversity at Lowell as the primary reason to end the merit-based admission process following an incident in which students were exposed to racist, pornographic and antisemitic images...

San Francisco’s Lowell High School, founded in 1856, is the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi. In 1894, it was renamed after Lowell, Massachusetts. By the 20th century, Lowell admitted students, not by neighborhood, but by academic qualifications. These qualifications meant the school was disproportionately White, Jewish, and for the last 50 years, Asian. Leftists have wanted to destroy it for decades. Thanks to BLM and the Wuhan virus, they are finally getting their chance. When I attended Lowell in the late 1970s, admission was based on junior high school grades. At that time, the student body was...

The Jefferson fiasco underscores how activist school leaders and alumni, from California to Massachusetts, are conspiring to recklessly overhaul school policies, education standards, and curriculum this year.FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. – After a crusade by educational arsonists targeting the nation’s No. 1 high school, America’s meritocracy is about to go up in flames. The Fairfax County School Board is set to vote Thursday night to gut the race-blind, merit-based admissions testing process at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. T.J. is a state-chartered magnet school legislated to serve academically gifted and advanced students. The school board plans to replace...

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) is one of the most noteworthy men America has ever produced. Born into slavery in 1856, Washington would make the most of his newfound freedom after the Civil War, procuring an education through hard work and rigorous study that would have even the most dedicated modern students fainting with exhaustion. He would go on to devote his life to lifting up others of his race in the South, founding Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881. A firm believer in the principles of hard work, personal merit, entrepreneurship and Christian charity toward all, Washington would eventually achieve...

The left calls for racial quotas in the name of progress, The American dream is that any citizen, regardless of sex, race, creed, or color, can rise on his determination and merit. History is littered with examples of the reformers who worked to realize that dream, pushing the most influential institutions in the country to prize talent and hard work over wealth and connections. The introduction of standardized testing, accessible to all American teens, was part of that push. Harvard University began administering a standardized test to all applicants in 1905. Its effect was profound and immediate: historically a landing...

President Trump signed an executive order making federal hiring "merit-based," which means skills and competency for a job will take precedence over a college degree for many types of jobs. In making this change, the White House believes it is playing catch-up to the private sector. "An over reliance on college degrees excludes capable candidates," Trump's order stated. It was signed June 26. But the change to merit-based hiring may become a monumental task for federal agencies. It might mean rewriting job ads that emphasize competencies over degrees, as well as adopting technology that can translate an applicant's experience into...

It’s nearly impossible to have even a short conversation with a college administrator, politician, or chief executive without the words diversity and inclusion dropping from their lips. Diversity and inclusion appear to be the end-all and be-all of their existence. So, I thought I’d begin this discussion by first looking up the definition of diversity. Here’s my question to those who are wedded to diversity and inclusion: Are people better off the less they have in common with one another? For example, women are less likely to be able to march 12.4 miles in five hours with an 83-pound assault...

Bill De Blasio: Merit Is Racist, So We Won’t Allow It In NYC Public Schools Merit is now racist, as far as Bill de Blasio’s School Diversity Advisory Group is concerned. His new plans are just the next step in active discrimination against hardworking students, for the sake of equal outcomes. Merit is now considered racist, as New York City Mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Bill de Blasio’s new education advisory committee suggests. A panel de Blasio appointed recently recommended ending selective merit-based programs in city public schools, even when no evidence supports the accusation of racial discrimination simply because...