Over two decades ago I was a national negotiator for the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA). In amongst unionising easyJet and other activities, I was privileged to learn about airline safety. BALPA had its own safety department, I weas able to watch pilots being trained in simulators and to accompany pilots in their cockpits (it was just before 9/11) in order to understand their role and the impeccable training they undertook. I was able to meet air traffic controllers to understand their job.
In those days there still airlines for whom female pilots were a novelty and black and minority ethnic pilots were a rarity indeed.
All this came back to me when I heard Donald Trump and his cronies claim that equality, diversity and inclusion (DEI) were the cause of the terrible collision involving the American Airlines flight and a U.S. Army helicopter over Washington, D.C.
Serious airline accidents, never mind mid-air collisions, are incredibly rare events. What airlines and airline safety agencies do when such an event or a near miss happens is to meticulously scrutinise every aspect of what happened and consider every possible cause in order to prevent a similar accident ever happening again.
What does Trump do?
He uses his press conference not as a sober event asking people to stay calm whilst the experts do their work, but to claim EDI is the cause of the accident. When asked what evidence he had for this extraordinary claim he replied “common sense”.
The experts may well look at the staffing, management, and training of all those involved. They will look at maintenance of the aircraft. They will check the black box recorder. They will listen to all the conversations between air traffic control and the pilots. They will consider every aspect of the environment in which this happened. They will do this in order to learn how to avoid anything similar happening again. Their priority is learning not blame. If they are allowed to, they will indeed consider staffing issues in air traffic control.
But Trump has a different agenda. Consider.
January 20th. The head of the Federal Aviation Administration Mike Whitaker resigns the day Trump took office, after Elon Musk said “he needs to resign” after Mike Whitaker called for Musk’s SpaceX company to be fined $633,009 over safety and environmental violations.
January 20th. Trump (at Musk’s bidding) froze the hiring of all federal employees, including air traffic controllers and transportation safety officials. This was despite the U.S. Department of Transportation saying 18 months earlier that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to daily operations of the airline industry were short staffed.
January 21st. Trump fires Transportation Security Administration chief David Pekoske, and then fires all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which the US Congress had created after the 1988 PanAm 103 Lockerbie bombing. The rationale for this gutting of expertise was they were “eliminating the misuse of resources.”
January 30th. The Federal Aviation Authority then found itself on the day of the crash without other key staff, notably an associate administrator of airports, an associate administrator for security and hazardous materials safety, chief counsel, assistant administrator of communications, assistant administrator of government and industry affairs and assistant administrator for policy, international affairs and environment as Trump prepares to install people who are “loyal” to him https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials
Shortly after this press conference, the New York Times reported that Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C, had just one air traffic controller doing the work usually assigned to two.
Trump ignored the wrecking of the aircraft safety leadership and staffing gaps and instead spoke to reporters and bizarrely blamed “diversity hiring” for the collision. A reporter asked Trump why, “I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash,” Trump answered: “Because I have common sense, ok? And unfortunately, a lot of people don't.” and his new Defence Secretary added "We will have the best and brightest in every position possible…. The era of DEI is gone”
Trump then signed a new executive order blaming Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the crash and stating “problematic and likely illegal decisions” during their administrations “minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).” They implemented “dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics,” it said, and recruited “individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.” The executive order says that his return to “merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion” will “ensure that all Americans fly with peace of mind.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/immediate-assessment-of-aviation-safety/
This nonsense continued the next day when his press officer said that Trump is “intent on ensuring that we are increasing staffing at these agencies” such as the FAA. “That’s why he signed a very strong executive order on his second day in office, immediately terminating DEI hiring practices”
Gary O’Hara, whose son Ryan O’Hara was one of the Black Hawk pilots killed after the helicopter collided with a commercial airline, has spoken out about his son’s love for his work, and the pain of hearing Donald Trump blame the tragedy on “DEI.” “You have to earn your spot to be moved into the ladder to be put into that helicopter. They don’t just give it to you. You earn it,” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/father-black-hawk-crew-chief-dc-plane-crash/
I don’t know the cause of this tragic crash. No one does yet. We can be absolutely certain of one thing. DEI hiring practices were not the cause.
So what’s this got to do with the NHS in the UK?
Firstly, it should be a warning about how any tragedy can weaponised against equitable and inclusive recruitment and career progression – despite the evidence they benefits health care (link). Kemi Badenoch, Tory leader, is a fan of this approach. What Trump is really saying is strop employing women, BME, LGBT and disabled people in senior positions because ………they are not White men.
Secondly, it illustrates how ideas of “merit” are easy to use against fairness at work because discrimination can be justified by a phoney definition of “merit” which assumes that women, black and minority ethnic staff and disabled staff are innately less capable that the white men who historically defined what “merit” was. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjleader/2020/12/06/merit-and-diversity-are-not-alternatives-by-roger-kline/
Thirdly, it is part and parcel of the contempt for experts, the undermining of evidence, the disregard for truth that already pervades public life in this country- and not just from politicians. Weve seen it from Cabinet Ministers in the recent past and contempt for “experts” has been a favourite diet of right-wing media, as during Covid.
Fourthly, Trump’s outburst demonstrates how important a learning and just culture is, because a focus on evidence and wariness of biases of all kinds is something we have to hold on to.
Fifth, far from the evidence suggesting EDI undermines effective workforces, the there is a wealth of evidence that when underpinned by inclusion it makes for more effective teams, better decision making and innovation. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvc77c0h
Finally, the fawning U-turn of organisations and individuals who only yesterday were in favour of equality, diversity and inclusion should lead us to really clarify what we mean by EDI, why it is important, why the NHS benefits from EDI, the obstacles to progress on it and what really works and is not performative.
This was a reminder to all of us to keep standing up for an evidenced and ethical approach to workforce culture and for our shared humanity.
I am sick and tired or having to point out that large numbers of the “Action Plans” on EDI that the NHS showcases on websites are not much more useful than chocolate teapots.
I am tired of explaining that it’s about time we followed the evidence on what is more likely to work on equity rather than performative good intentions.
Tired of arguing that those who wish to lead the NHS are not fit to do so unless they understand and own the issue and put in place accountability and evidenced based strategies as part of everyday improvement in patient services, rather than relying on token compliance good intentions.
If we don’t demonstrate why EDI is important and what works to achieve it – and model the behaviours we say we expect of others, then we can expect Trumpite nonsense here to multiply. We have already seen cowardice, notably on racism, in the face of the previous Government.
As politicians demonstrate everyday, speaking nonsense can be rather popular on issues like EDI, unless vigorously challenged. We have been warned.
Because when the real causes of the Washington DC aircraft tragedy emerge, Trump will have moved on to some other divisive nonsense as his pound shop imitators here do.
Don’t let his nonsense about “wokery” enable this pig and his porkies to fly.
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