Texas judge orders Southwest Airlines attorneys to 'religious-liberty training' for flouting his ruling in pro-life discrimination case



A federal judge in the Lone Star State has ordered three attorneys for Southwest Airlines to attend a Christian law firm's eight-hour course on religious liberty for having violated court orders issuing from a pro-life flight attendant's religious discrimination case.

In addition to hammering the attorneys over their apparent insolence, U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, nominated by former President Donald Trump in 2019, has made sure Southwest cannot hide from its employees its past discriminatory behavior or its legal inability to repeat that behavior, requiring that they say as much in an internal memo.

What's the background?

TheBlaze previously reported that Southwest Airlines fired Charlene Carter in 2017 for expressing pro-life views and taking issue with the requirement that she subsidize pro-abortion activism by way of mandatory union dues. She had been with the airline for roughly 20 years.

With the help of free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Carter took the Transport Workers Union and Southwest to court.

In July 2022, a federal jury agreed that Carter had been wrongfully terminated for her pro-life and religious views and awarded the former flight attendant a $5.1 million verdict — $950,000 from Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union and $4.15 million from Southwest Airlines.

Starr reportedly had to reduce the original amount to $810,180, including $150,000 in back pay, because federal discrimination law limits damages that companies can pay out.

In December, Starr further ordered the company to reinstate Carter with full seniority and benefits.

Violations

Extra to compensation and reinstatement, Starr ordered the airline and union to take various corrective actions, such as informing "Southwest flight attendants that, under Title VII, they 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."

It appears the airline did not follow Starr's order to the letter or even the sentence.

According to a sanction order issued by Starr on Monday, messages dispatched by Southwest airlines to employees "failed to mention Title VII, that the federal law known as Title VII contains a prohibition, and that that prohibition forbids Southwest from discriminating against flight attendants for their religious beliefs."

Instead, they said only, "Southwest does not discriminate against our Employees for their religious practices and beliefs.

"In the universe we live in — the one where words mean something — Southwest's notice didn't come close to complying with the Court's order," wrote Starr.

The federal judge indicated the attorneys for the airline further violated the court's corrective order by circulating a memo around the company "stating that its employees must abide by the types of policies over which Southwest fired Carter and that it believed its firing of Carter was justified because of these policies."

Consequently, Carter moved for sanctions, and the court moved to take Southwest to task once more.

Remedies

The airline has been ordered to send attorneys Ferrie Forbes, Kevin Minchey, and Chris Maberry to religious liberty training, which will be conducted by the Alliance Defending Freedom, concluding that this "is the least restrictive means of achieving compliance with the Court's order."

Starr stated that "Southwest must transport ADF's representative to Dallas and be responsible for any food, accommodation, or other travel expenses for ADF's representative."

Starr has also ordered the airline to issue an email to its flight attendants explaining how its previous messages were wrong, along with the correct message.

Concerning the order, Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, said in a statement obtained by TheBlaze, "Southwest’s past behavior against Carter was discriminatory and illegal, and the District Court’s order rightly shuts down Southwest Airlines’ bald-faced attempt to dodge its responsibility to inform flight attendants of its wrongdoing."

"Hopefully this order provides hope to other independent minded workers that their right to express their religious dissent against union and company political agendas cannot so easily be waved away," added Mix.

The ADF said in a statement to CNN it is "pleased that the judge and jury protected the religious speech of the employee in this case."

Jim Campbell, chief legal counsel for ADF, said, "Every company should respect religious liberty and diverse viewpoints in the workplace. ... We are happy to help Southwest achieve that goal by providing training on Title VII and other applicable laws barring religious discrimination."

Southwest and the union appealed the December ruling and told CNN they will similarly appeal Starr's sanctions order.

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'Bags fly free with Southwest. But free speech didn't fly at all': Judge orders Southwest Airlines to reinstate flight attendant fired for expressing pro-life views



Southwest Airlines fired former flight attendant Charlene Carter from her "dream job" for expressing pro-life views. Carter fought the airline and Transport Workers Union Local 556 for nearly six years and won in July.

The judge who ruled in her favor issued an order this week requiring the airline to reinstate Carter with full seniority and benefits.

What are the details?

In July, a federal jury agreed that Carter had been wrongfully terminated for her pro-life and religious views and awarded the former flight attendant a $5.1 million verdict — $950,000 from Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union and $4.15 million from Southwest Airlines.

The Dallas Morning News reported that U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, nominated by former President Donald Trump in 2019, had to reduce the original amount to $810,180, including $150,000 in back pay, because federal discrimination law limits damages that companies can pay out.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the amount Carter will ultimately receive comprises $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from Southwest and another $300,000 for the same from the union; $150,000 in back pay; and over $60,000 in prejudgment interest.

While noting that the jury had also awarded Carter future pay lost as a result of her discriminatory firing by Southwest, Starr wrote that "Carter would rather have her job back."

Accordingly, the "Court reinstates Carter to her former position. ... If the Court opted for front pay over reinstatement, the court would complete Southwest's unlawful scheme. Reinstatement is appropriate."

Despite having had to significantly cut down Carter's compensation, Starr nevertheless enjoined the defendants "from discriminating against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs, including — but not limited to — those expressed on social media and those concerning abortion."

Extra to restoring Carter's job, Starr required both the airline and the union to electronically share the court's decision with all union members and to post the documents in conspicuous places for two months.

Accordingly, Southwest will have to remind its employees that the company is not allowed to discriminate against them for expressing their opinions about abortion online.

The judge also wrote that the airline's lawyers "continue to hunt for 'controversial' social-media posts from Carter instead of pondering their own mistakes and planning a future life free of them," despite having been found by a jury to be "grossly intolerant of their flight attendants' speech in violation of federal law."

"Bags fly free with Southwest. But free speech didn’t fly at all with Southwest in this case," wrote Starr.

Southwest's pro-abortion baggage

Carter complained in 2017 to then-union president Audrey Stone that union members used union funds to travel to Washington, D.C., for the purposes of protesting former President Donald Trump's pro-life views. The protest was reportedly also sponsored by abortion activist groups such as Planned Parenthood.

Despite having terminated her membership with the union years earlier, under the conditions of her employment, Carter was still required to pay union fees — fees that subsidized the pro-abortion protest in Washington.

According to Life News, Carter had spent much of her adult life struggling with depression and regret over having let Planned Parenthood kill her unborn baby.

Made financially complicit in speech and actions she had long grown to detest, Carter spoke out.

While some union members went to express their disdain for Trump's opposition to the killing of the unborn, Carter took to social media to criticize both the pro-abortion march and Stone, calling the latter "despicable."

Carter was brought in by Southwest representatives one week later and asked to explain herself and her Facebook posts. The explanations, though honest, were apparently not what the company wanted to hear.

After working for the airline for 20 years, Carter was fired on March 16, 2017, for allegedly violating the company's harassment policy.

Upon Carter's victory over the airline in July, National Right to Work — the organization that provided Carter with free legal representation — stated, "This long overdue verdict vindicates Ms. Carter’s fundamental right to dissent from the causes and ideas that TWU union officials – who claim to ‘represent’ Southwest flight attendants – support while forcing workers to bankroll their activities."

"No American worker should have to fear termination, intimidation, or any other reprisal merely for speaking out against having their own money spent, purportedly in their name, to promote an agenda they find abhorrent," the organization added.

Southwest Airlines spokesman Brandy King indicated that the airline intends to appeal the verdict to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Former Southwest Airlines flight attendant, fired for sharing her pro-life religious views, awarded $5.1 million



Southwest Airlines and Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union may owe over $5 million total to a former Southwest flight attendant who was fired for expressing pro-life views to the union's former president.

A federal district court jury in Dallas, Texas, sided with Charlene Carter in a lawsuit she filed against her former employer and former union.

Carter claimed in the lawsuit that in 2017, she complained to then-union president Audrey Stone that union members used union funds to travel to Washington, D.C., in March of that year to protest the anti-abortion views of Donald Trump, who was president at the time. According to the suit, the protest was sponsored by several abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood, which Carter opposes.

In a series of Facebook posts directed at Stone, Carter expressed her outrage about the pro-abortion march, reiterated her religiously-based pro-life stance, and reportedly shared videos which depict aborted babies. She also called Stone "despicable" and threatened that Stone would soon lose her position as union president.

One week later, representatives from Southwest demanded a meeting with Carter. At the meeting, Southwest showed Carter screen shots of her Facebook posts and reportedly demanded to know why she made them. Though she explained her reasons for the posts, Southwest must have found her reasons unsatisfactory because the airline fired her a week later.

Carter worked for Southwest for 20 years but terminated her membership with the union in September 2013 when she discovered that the union was financially supporting pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood, while the practice of abortion violates Carter's Christian beliefs. Though she was no longer a member of TWU Local 556, she had to continue to pay union fees as a condition of her employment. In the lawsuit, she claimed that those fees helped finance the pro-abortion protest in which Stone and other Southwest employees participated.

Carter and her legal team ultimately argued that she had been fired for her religious and pro-life views, and the federal jury apparently agreed. The verdict issued by the jury orders Southwest to pay Carter $4.15 million and TWU Local 556 to pay $950,000.

“This long overdue verdict vindicates Ms. Carter’s fundamental right to dissent from the causes and ideas that TWU union officials – who claim to ‘represent’ Southwest flight attendants – support while forcing workers to bankroll their activities. No American worker should have to fear termination, intimidation, or any other reprisal merely for speaking out against having their own money spent, purportedly in their name, to promote an agenda they find abhorrent," said an excerpt from a statement issued by National Right to Work, the organization which provided Carter with free legal representation.

Southwest, however, disagreed and pledged to appeal the verdict:

"Southwest Airlines has a demonstrated history of supporting our Employees' rights to express their opinions when done in a respectful manner. We are disappointed with this verdict and plan to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals."