Public safety too important for DEI, judge rules in Boeing case, bucking DOJ
A federal judge in Texas has blocked a plea deal between Boeing and the Department of Justice because it mandated race be considered in selecting a monitor for the company’s safety…
A federal judge in Texas has blocked a plea deal between Boeing and the Department of Justice because it mandated race be considered in selecting a monitor for the company’s safety practices.
The airplane maker was brought up on felony criminal charges after it violated the terms of a 2021 plea deal stemming from the death of 346 people during two crashes of its 737 MAX jets in 2018 and 2019.
The DOJ leveled those charges after a door plug panel blew out of an Alaska Airlines jet in midflight in January.
The company was set to enter a guilty plea and receive three years of safety and compliance monitoring by an independent monitor, but Judge Reed O’Conner balked at a requirement that diversity be considered in hiring that party.
“The plea agreement requires the parties to consider race when hiring the independent monitor,” the US District judge from Texas judge wrote in his decision. “In a case of this magnitude, it is in the utmost interest of justice that the public is confident this monitor selection is done based solely on competency.”
O’Conner, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush in 2007, has a history of conservative rulings, such as a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (a ruling the Supreme Court later overturned).
The judge also nullified an attempt by the Biden administration to stop schools from discriminating against students based on gender identity or sexual orientation, the New York Post reported.
O’Connor’s action gives Boeing and the DOJ 30 days to revisit the agreement.
In the meantime, the beleaguered airplane maker recently announced it would reduce its global workforce by 17,000, or 10%.
It is scheduled to cut 700 jobs in Missouri next month, part of 3,500 layoffs announced in the U.S. so far. The greatest number of cuts are in Washington, where Boeing was founded, followed by Missouri.
In June, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, grilled then Boeing CEO David Calhoun about safety and other issues at the company during a Congressional hearing.
“The FAA says Boeing still has not implemented the recommend steps back from 2019-2020 after the MAX crashes. You still have not taken the appropriate safety procedures or implemented what they have recommended,” Hawley said at the time, before criticizing Calhoun’s nearly $33 million salary. “For the American people, they’re in danger. For your workers, they’re in peril. For your whistleblowers, they literally fear for their lives, but you’re getting compensated like never before.”
Calhoun left his position in August and was replaced by Robert “Kelly” Ortberg, a longtime aerospace veteran.