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Fox News quickly scrubbed language from its open job listings showing its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives after media reporter Oliver Darcy asked the network about the contradiction between its corporate embrace of diversity and Fox’s on-air hosts’ demonization of DEI.
Following a deadly midair crash over Washington, D.C., that left 67 people dead, President Donald Trump repeatedly and baselessly blamed DEI hiring initiatives that were supposedly put in place by the Biden administration, claiming that the FAA believed the “workforce was too white” and sought out “people with severe mental disabilities.” The FAA’s hiring policies regarding intellectual disabilities haven’t changed since 2013 – and remained in place during Trump’s first administration.
Despite aviation experts saying there’s no merit to Trump’s wild claims about DEI causing the collision, the president has doubled down and insisted this “is just one reason why our Country WAS going to hell.” His most loyal sycophants at Fox News, who have long raged against diversity hiring policies, spent much of the day on Thursday backing the president’s evidence-free narrative.
The MAGA network’s resident “comic” Greg Gutfeld said it was “fair” to blame DEI for everything that goes wrong. At the same time, Jesse Watters – his colleague on The Five – claimed that federal air traffic control was dealing with staffing shortages because it “was unable to meet their own DEI quotas.”
Watters would later go on to say people should be “suspicious” that DEI plays a role in disasters. Laura Ingraham, who has served as an informal adviser to Trump, added that “all that nonsense about diversity has to go,” while primetime host and longtime Trump confidant Sean Hannity linked the horrific crash to “insane DEI directives.”
Amid the right-wing network’s anti-DEI tirade on air, Darcy reached out to Fox News to ask them about the disparity between its hosts’ ongoing villainization of diversity hiring programs and the company being a champion of DEI behind the scenes, the journalist reported in his Status News newsletter. Indeed, Fox News’ parent company Fox Corp. has repeatedly boasted to its shareholders about its commitment “to diversity from the very top of the Company,” adding that its board of directors “requires that minority and female candidates are presented for consideration with each Director vacancy.”
In December 2022, the network created an “inclusion index” to determine whether “corporate culture is moving in the right direction. ” It also added a section to address the gap in Black employee mentorship opportunities.
Darcy noticed that the network expressed its deep commitment to DEI in each job posting that it listed – even for roles on shows hosted by MAGA culture warriors. “We are deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, including attracting, retaining, and promoting diverse talent across our company,” the job postings noted at the bottom, adding: “We live in a diverse world, with different ideas and perspectives…reflecting the diversity of the world around us is critical to our company’s success.”
Following his inquiry in which he asked about the network’s on-air commentary being “at severe odds with its stated goals,” Darcy noted that the pro-diversity language had been removed from the listings.
A Fox News spokesperson then gave him the following statement: “FOX News Media routinely reviews our legal obligations including under federal, state, and local law and we have removed this language.”
When reached for comment, a network spokesperson provided The Independent with the exact same response.
