EXCLUSIVE: US Air Force Ran A Social Experiment To Graduate More Minority Pilots. It Didn’t Go As Planned; “When other priorities, like gender or race, are introduced as a metric of assignment and

advancement, the foundations of performance-based competition are sacrificed and the emphasis on safety takes a backseat,” a current Air Force instructor pilot and former trainer; anonymity reprisal

“When other priorities, like gender or race, are introduced as a metric of assignment and advancement, the foundations of performance-based competition are sacrificed and the emphasis on safety takes a backseat,” a current Air Force instructor pilot and former trainer for Undergraduate Pilot Training, who spoke on a condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal, told the DCNF.”

‘As part of the larger military-wide effort to promote diversity in the service’s pilot ranks, the 19th Air Force command near San Antonio, Texas, “clustered” racial minorities and female trainees into one class, dubbed “America’s Class,” to find out if doing so would improve the pilots’ graduation rates. However, not only did the effort fail to boost minority and women candidates’ success rates, but officers involved say they were ordered to engage in potentially unlawful discrimination by excluding white males from the class, documents show.’

‘“When other priorities, like gender or race, are introduced as a metric of assignment and advancement, the foundations of performance-based competition are sacrificed and the emphasis on safety takes a backseat,” a current Air Force instructor pilot and former trainer for Undergraduate Pilot Training, who spoke on a condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal, told the DCNF.

A “significant backlog” of pilot candidates waiting to begin classes offered the 19th Air Force, which conducts pilot training for the entire service at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, a chance to build a class from scratch, a spokesperson for Air Education and Training Command (AETC) told the DCNF. So, the 19th Air Force “clustered” candidates from “underrepresented groups” into Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (SUPT) class 21-15, with the initial intent of roughly mirroring the racial and gender makeup of the U.S.”