I'm going to assume you weren't in the agency during that time or weren't actively involved with what was going on in the hiring process.
Lets rewind four years for context....
The FAA continues to miss their hiring goals (which is the real reason for staffing crisis, continued yearly missed hiring goals, not christmas tree-ing the BA during it's validation), then they come out of the hiring freeze with the BA in 2014, which eliminates 95% of all candidates. They had so few applicants remaining, every candidate that scored 70 or above on the AT-SAT was given a TOL. Not only did the BA eliminate any tangible benefit to the CTI program, it also eliminated any benefit for experienced controllers. The FAA had no intention of offering prior experience bids, the BA was the magic cure all. People who had 3 years of work experience at TCBY got through the BA while actual controllers with 10 years of air traffic experience in the military did not. The failure of the BA led to multiple congressional hearings, the first of which dealt with the BA being invalidated and how experienced controllers from the military were being denied opportunities due to the BA.
As a result, they attempted to "validate" the BA by having current controllers take it. They didn't allow for any OT to be called in and your breaks were cut short as a result. Now, to get in the mindset of what was at stake... Everyone was aware of the failure of the BA and how it kept competent controllers (many of which were friends from CTI/CTO/Military, etc) and we're asked to help validate a inherently flawed system that created a barrier to entry for competent controllers so the FAA could continue using it?! Now you want to take away my break to help you continue to fuck over our friends that haven't been hired yet?? No thanks. You know what also never became publicly available? The results of the "validation". The FAA was not trying to "validate" it on current controllers out of the goodness of their hearts, they were being pressured to do so due to the congressional hearings and simply saying it's now "validated" was simply them checking a box. If you have a few hours to spare, the congressional hearings where the FAA has to answer to the BA while they're asked painfully obvious questions that make them look completely incompetent is a fun watch.
Through additional congressional hearings, public pressure, and as more data came out over just how big of a failure the 2014 was, they reinstated prior experience hires in 2015. Then, in 2016, congress changed the law for the hiring of air traffic controllers to the two pool system, eliminating the BA for CTI/Military.
I wouldn't question anyone's motives for their silent protest against the BA, I would, however, question anyone who believes the BA has a positive effect on hiring.
