The Association of Collegiate Training Institutions is pleased to announce that a federal Court has reversed a previous Court decision dismissing portions of the CTI discrimination suit. The lawsuit will now proceed.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled in favor of the Plaintiff (a CTI graduate) in the case that challenges the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) changes to the hiring process for air traffic control specialists. Those changes, implemented in 2014, caused approximately 2,000-3,000 qualified graduates from Collegiate Training Institutions who had taken the exam to become part of the hiring pool to be dropped from the list.
The lawsuit, filed in the District of Arizona in 2015, was partially dismissed and transferred to D.C. The CTI student then sought reconsideration of the Court’s decision. Today’s ruling reverses that dismissal. The Court ruled that there was a clear error of law to dismiss part of the lawsuit.
The next step is for the Department of Transportation to “answer” the lawsuit within the next 21 days, by admitting or denying the facts asserted by the Plaintiff.
The case, which has not been certified as a class action yet, proposes to include those who were impacted by the changes to the hiring process.
We are pleased that the FAA’s actions which not only have threatened air safety but also undermined the education which many thousands of qualified individuals will now proceed to the merits of the case.