Transportation Sec Duffy Looking Into Whether DEI Activist Helped Minorities Cheat On FAA Entry Exam

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he would investigate after a report alleged that a top DEI activist offered minority air traffic controller candidates a way to cheat on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) entry exam.

In an audio clip from 2014 obtained by The Daily Mail, Shelton Snow of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE), who has served as an air traffic operations supervisor based out of New York, was recorded telling prospective hires, “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. … I am about 99.99 percent sure that it is exactly how you need to answer each question.”

A former NBCFAE member, Matthew Douglas, informed The Daily Mail, “I know several people who cheated and I know several people who are controlling planes as we speak.”

“The inside info was made available in 2014 to African Americans, females, and other minority candidates – but whites were left out of the loop to ‘minimize competition,’” the news outlet added.

“I am launching a full investigation into the DEI hiring allegations at the FAA immediately. If true, swift accountability will come for those responsible. We need the best and brightest, not buzzword, DEI hires,” Duffy stated on X.

I am launching a full investigation into the DEI hiring allegations at the FAA immediately.

If true, swift accountability will come for those responsible. We need the best and brightest, not buzzword, DEI hires. https://t.co/CTW75umVb5

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) March 13, 2025

“Until 2013, the FAA gave hiring preference to controller applicants who earned a degree from one of its Collegiate Training Initiative schools and scored high enough on an eight-hour screening test called the Air Traffic Selection and Training exam, or AT-SAT, which measures cognitive skills. The Obama administration, however, determined that the process excluded too many from minority groups,” Jason Riley of the Manhattan Institute commented in 2015.

By 2014, the FAA started using a biographical questionnaire to test prospective candidates, with questions such as, “How many sports did you play in high school?” and “What has been the major cause of your failures?”

Referring to the 2014 entry test, The Daily Mail reported, “A job questionnaire for aspiring air traffic controllers introduced by the Obama administration was designed to meet secret DEI target numbers.”

Within days of his inauguration in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum “terminating a Biden Administration Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hiring policy that prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) over safety and efficiency.”