Fact Sheets

# Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Ends DEI Madness and Restores Excellence and Safety within the Federal Aviation Administration

The White House
January 22, 2025

FLIGHTS SHOULD BE SUPERVISED BY THE BEST EMPLOYEES: President Donald J. Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum terminating a Biden Administration Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hiring policy that prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) over safety and efficiency.

- This Presidential Memorandum orders the Secretary of Transportation and FAA Administrator to immediately stop Biden DEI hiring programs and return to non-discriminatory, merit-based hiring.
- It also requires the FAA Administrator to review the past performance and performance standards of all FAA employees in critical safety positions and make clear that any individual who fails to demonstrate adequate capability is replaced by someone who will ensure Americans’ flight safety and efficiency.

MILLIONS OF AMERICANS RELY ON SAFE, TIMELY AIR TRAVEL EVERY DAY: Safety and competence should be the only job criteria for FAA employees, yet the Biden Administration violated the public trust—as well as the law—by prioritizing illegal DEI hiring.

- Every day, more than 45,000 flights and 2.9 million airline passengers traveling for work or fun or to visit friends and family entrust their lives to the FAA.
- Almost unbelievably, as a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiative, the Biden FAA specifically recruited and hired individuals with “severe intellectual” disabilities, psychiatric issues, and complete paralysis over other individuals who sought to work for the FAA.
- President Trump is immediately terminating this illegal and dangerous program and requiring that all FAA hiring be based solely on ensuring the safety of airline passengers and overall job excellence.
  - On January 11, 2023, two weeks after a major holiday airline crisis, an FAA system outage caused by employees missteps grounded all flights for the first time since 9/11, an illustration of the importance of FAA competence.

FULFILLING PROMISE TO END ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION AND BRING BACK COMMON SENSE: This Presidential Memorandum builds on President Trump’s day-one Executive Order ending the Biden Administration’s illegal and immoral DEI discrimination programs.

- In his inaugural address, President Trump promised: ““We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”

President Trump stated in his January 20, 2025 Executive Order on Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing: “Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great.”

## Related

- ### Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation

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- ### Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety

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  January 30, 2025

- ### Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Removes DEI From the Foreign Service

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- ### Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Ensures Accountability and Prioritizes Public Safety in Federal Hiring

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- ### Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Protects Civil Rights and Merit-Based Opportunity by Ending Illegal DEI

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