Brigida v. FAA

Brigida v. FAA
Court	United States District Court for the District of Arizona United States District Court for the District of Columbia
Full case name	Andrew J Brigida, Plaintiff, v. United States Department of Transportation, et al., Defendants.

Brigida v. United States Department of Transportation et al, No. 1:2016cv02227, is a class action, racial discrimination lawsuit that was filed in the United States in November 2016. The lead plaintiff is Andrew Brigida. The plaintiffs, in total about 1,000, accused the Federal Aviation Administration of racially discriminating against them when they applied to be air-traffic controllers.

Background

Further information: Disparate impact

In 2014, the Wall St. Journal and the Chicago Tribune published separate articles about what had been, until December 2013, a long standing program that the FAA had been using to recruit applicants for its air-traffic control trainee program. Under this long standing program, when the FAA had accepted applicants to be trained as air-traffic controllers, it had been giving preference to applicants who had taken air-traffic control classes at any of 36 FAA approved colleges and universities. Although this program involving the 36 colleges had been open to people of all races and all genders, the people who chose to take these college classes had been disproportionately white and male. The program was deemed to be racist and sexist, and it was canceled in December 2013. It was replaced with a biographical questionnaire that was designed to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion. Because participants under the canceled policy had invested a substantial amount of time and money in taking these college classes, they felt that they had been betrayed, and they filed the class action lawsuit.

Renewed attention in 2025

Following the 2025 Potomac River mid-air collision, the lawsuit, as well as the general subject of diversity, equity, and inclusion as it relates to aviation, received renewed attention.