Southwest Airlines attorneys ordered to attend ‘religious-liberty training’ by federal judge
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On Monday, a federal judge ordered three Southwest Airlines attorneys to attend “religious liberty training” after not following an earlier court-made mandate.
Earlier this year, the Dallas-based airline fired Charlene Carter — a Southwest flight attendant of more than 20 years — for political and religious opinions expressed on social media, reported the Texan. District Judge Brantley Starr awarded the flight attendant $5 million and required the airline to reinstate her.
Starr also told the airline to “inform 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,” reported CNN.
Instead, the airline wrote a memo to all flight attendants that stated, “Southwest does not discriminate against our Employees for their religious practices and beliefs,” per The Associated Press. It also included harsh criticism of Carter’s actions, telling the employees to follow the policy that got Carter fired.
The court concluded “that training on religious freedom for three lawyers at Southwest the Court finds responsible (Kerrie Forbes, Kevin Minchey, and Chris Maberry) is the least restrictive means of achieving compliance with the Court’s order,” the judge said, per CNN. “The Alliance Defending Freedom (‘ADF’) has conducted such training in the past, and the Court deems that appropriate here.”
Following the other requirement, the airline’s attorneys reinstated Carter but still maintained that she was harassing co-workers.
“Although Southwest contends the Email Notice still substantially complied with the judgment, Southwest has already offered to purge this alleged contempt by providing a corrective notice replacing the ‘does not discriminate’ language with ‘may not discriminate,’” they wrote. “Put another way, there is no conduct for religious-liberty training to remedy.”
ADF, a conservative group asked to conduct the training, replied to the mandate in a statement made to CNN that it’s “pleased that the judge and jury protected the religious speech of the employee in this case.”
The choice to have ADF do the training is troubling to some, like David Lopez, who was general counsel for the U.S. Equal Employment Commission during the Barack Obama administration and current law professor at Rutgers University.
“The court is moving into some really dangerous territory here,” Lopez told Reuters.
He told Reuters that because of the group’s conservative Christian viewpoint, it could interfere with the lawyers’ rights, especially if they identify as something other than Christian.
The training is to last at least eight hours and be completed before Aug. 28, per CNN.
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