“DEI is not getting rid of merit-based hiring. It’s supporting it. It doesn’t mean putting unqualified people in jobs.” Meryl K. Evans said.
DALLAS — If you are a disability advocate, someone trying to get people with disabilities legitimate and well-earned opportunities in the workplace, the words and suggestions of President Donald Trump this week were especially difficult to hear.
“Very dangerous,” said Meryl K. Evans, a public speaker and accessibility marketing consultant in Plano, in response to the President’s suggestion that DEI hiring policies could be involved in the mid-air collision in Washington, D.C.
“So many feelings,” Evans told WFAA. “Angry. Upset. Exhausted. Because this is only two weeks into the administration. I’m like, what else?”
Evans’ perspective is unique. Born deaf, she hears with the help of a cochlear implant. Early in her career, she worked at the Federal Aviation Administration as a program analyst in the human resources department. She says Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are not about receiving employment someone is not qualified for.
“DEI is not getting rid of merit-based hiring. It’s supporting it,” she said. “It does not mean putting unqualified people in jobs. It means leveling the playing field.”
Still, Trump has doubled down on his DEI talk, signing an executive order for an “Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety” that claims the crash between an Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines commercial jet over the Potomac River “follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).”
“And if they don’t have a great brain, a great power of the brain, they’re not going to be very good at what they do and bad things will happen,” Trump said in the oval office.
The American Association of People with Disabilities called out the Trump’s anti-DEI speculation.
“FAA employees with disabilities did not cause…” and “DEI hiring did not cause…” the mid-air collision. “Using this tragedy to push the President’s anti-diversity hiring agenda is inappropriate and wrong.”
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called the President’s comments “despicable.”
“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” Buttigieg wrote.
The FAA reiterated that air traffic controllers must pass highly rigorous medical, aptitude and psychological exams to earn employment. The FAA says that in 2022, 57,000 people applied to become air traffic controllers. Only 1,000 made it to the training phase.
Meryl, meanwhile, continues to advocate for what DEI is and what it is not.
“They’re going to start changing people’s minds and convince them don’t hire disabled people at all, including qualified ones,” she said when asked what she fears the results of the rhetoric might be. “I’m afraid we’re going backwards.”
And she hopes the President hears and understands that.
