An American federal judge in Texas has just ruled that racist thinking cannot supersede professional best practices where the safety of airline passengers is at stake.
As I wrote several years ago when the virtue-signaling of the woke, diversity, equity and inclusion movement spread like a viral pathogen across American bureaucracies – public and private – invidious racism has no place in a moral capitalism.
We can each be as proud as we want to be of our genetic heritage and the cultures which have nourished our families over generations, but moral standards demand something more than application of genetic codes for appearance and reproductive capacities or cultural traditions when we pass judgment on others.
The issue before the judge was who Boeing may select as a monitor of its safety practices. The case involved remediation of Boeing’s business model after the crashes of two 737 MAX aircraft.
In settling its case against Boeing for negligence in causing 346 passenger deaths, the federal government insisted on an agreement that Boeing would use standards of diversity and inclusion when choosing an independent monitor of its production of aircraft.
Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the government’s use of the words “diversity” and “inclusion” did not rule out racism and so opened the door to racist criteria in evaluating candidates for supervising the quality of the safety protections used in building airplanes and built into each aircraft brought to market.
I suppose the moral norm of justice is not to use racism to screen out qualified candidates and also not to use racism inappropriately to screen in qualified candidates. That seems to be the basis for Judge O’Connor’s decision, which is in keeping with the Supreme Court’s refusal to legitimate racism in allocating acceptances for college admissions.
You may read Judge O’Connor’s opinion here.