Ok-but you make a sweeping statement about the impact to safety and ATC numbers in the wake of an air tragedy - do you expect me to weigh this as heavily as COVID?

While I agree with the surface evaluation(you have likely lower quality initial candidates(not necessarily race induced) = more academy failures = more pressure on upstream DEV/CFC training) - you'd need to identify a few things such as why the spike didn't occur in 2014-2016 in such large #s compared to 2017, what safety data tells us about this time and how number of flight actions per controller has changed over time after this hiring change.

I find it somewhat disingenuous to consider safety and tie it back to this as you present it as the only cause while failing to mention other inputs.

This is NOT TO SAY you do not have a very valid discussion here - I just am frustrated to see it tied into modern day without hashing through other modern causes - folks who want to point a finger at "disadvantaged candidate hiring." get all the hay they need when nothing else is mentioned.