A Texas District Judge ordered Southwest Airlines to send three of its lawyers for religious freedom training after they fired a flight attendant who expressed religious views on social media.
District Judge Brantley Starr ordered on Monday that Southwest has to organize religious freedom training and send a short notice to all its flight attendants regarding the protections on religious speech, after a lawsuit filed by flight attendant Charlene Carter.
Ms. Carter was fired by Southwest after expressing her views on abortion on social media. Southwest said this violated its “civility policy.”
The Judge said in his opinion that “Southwest needs to understand, when communicating with its employees, that federal protections for religious freedom override any company civility policy. The rule of law and the republican form of government guarantee no less.”
Ms. Carter initially filed a lawsuit after she was fired and the jury found that Southwest had violated Ms. Carter’s protections of religious speech, granted by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
The court then ordered at that time that Ms. Carter should be reinstated, that is prohibited for Southwest to discriminate on religious beliefs, and that the company should inform all flight attendants that “under Title VII, [Southwest] may not discriminate against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practice or beliefs,” according to the court’s final opinion document published on Monday.
Instead, the recent opinion says, Southwest sent a notice to its flight attendants saying that “[t]he court [] ordered us to inform you that Southwest does not discriminate against our Employees for their religious practices and beliefs.”
In other words, Southwest inverted the court’s intent.
Southwest also sent a memo to its flight attendants telling them to abide by the policies that fired Ms. Carter.
After that, Ms. Carter moved for sanctions.
The Judge also wrote in order to more vividly illustrate Southwest’s course of action,
“It’s hard to see how Southwest could have violated the notice requirement more. Take these modified historical and movie anecdotes. After God told Adam, ‘[Y]ou must not eat from the tree [in the middle of the garden],’ imagine Adam telling God, ‘I do not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden’—while an apple core rests at his feet. Or where Gandalf bellows, ‘You shall not pass,’ the Balrog muses, ‘I do not pass,’ while strolling past Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.”
Thus, the court found in this final opinion that Southwest not only did not comply with the court’s order, but it also turned it around to communicate something contrary to the court’s order.
The Judge also said that given the circumstance that Southwest was unclear on how religious freedom has to be respected according to the law, a rational and desired course of action would be for Southwest’s lawyers to attend religious freedom training in order to better understand how to not violate the law in the future.
In order to compel compliance with its order, the Texas court has now ordered Southwest to:
First, the three lawyers responsible for Ms. Carter’s firing have to undergo religious freedom training by the non-profit Alliance Defending Freedom. The three lawyers are Kerrie Forbes, Kevin Minchey, and Chris Maberry. The deadline for the training is August 28.
Second, email to each of its flight attendants the following text, ‘The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered Southwest to issue the following statement to you: On December 20, 2022, Southwest’s Legal Department issued an e-mail to all flight attendants entitled “Recent Court Decision” regarding a federal court judgment against Southwest and Transport Workers Union, Local 556. That e-mail said, “[t]he court . . . ordered us to inform you that Southwest does not discriminate against our Employees for their religious practices and beliefs.”
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas subsequently found that the statement’s use of “does not discriminate” was incorrect. Accordingly, the Court has ordered Southwest’s Legal Department to issue the following amended statement:
Under Title VII, Southwest may not discriminate against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs, including—but not limited to—those expressed on social media and those concerning abortion.’
Third, Southwest has to certify that the three lawyers have attended the training and show proof that it has communicated the above-mentioned text to its flight attendants.
Southwoke
Southwest Airlines has joined several brands, including Bud Light, Target, and PetSmart, being targeted for “wokeness.”The Dallas-Texas-based airline was recently denied its request to take over the “Southwoke.com” website that takes aim at the company’s LGBT policies and hiring guidelines.
The Southwoke website features photoshopped images of Southwest Airlines CEO Robert Jordan and Board of Directors members David Biegler, Nancy Loefler, Gary Kelly, and Veronica Biggins dressed in drag attire and wearing wild-looking hairstyles.
Southwest filed a complaint in April against the website and requested that the Southwoke domain be turned over to Southwest Airlines.
There’s a page titled “A Message From Our CEO” in the Southwoke parody website.
“Here at Southwoke, we’re fully committed to DEI, ESG, Allyship, #MeToo, and every other trendy woke acronym or hashtag you can think of. In fact, we’re so committed that we want to import those same values from other woke meccas like San Francisco and Portland to right here, deep in the heart of Texas—the stolen lands of the Caddo, Wichita, and Comanche people,” the message from “Bob Jordan” reads, whose listed pronouns are “He/Him/Two Spirit.”
