May 6, 2024
A federal judge has set off a debate among legal scholars by ordering lawyers for Southwest Airlines to undergo “religious-liberty training” by a conservative Christian legal group.
U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr made the decision after ruling that Southwest was in contempt of court for defying a previous order he issued in a case involving a flight attendant who said she was fired for expressing her opposition to abortion. She sued Southwest and won.
Starr, nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump, said Southwest didn't understand federal protections for religious freedom. So, he ordered three of the airline's lawyers to undergo religious-liberty training. And he said that the Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, “is particularly well-suited" to do the training.
The group has gained attention — and high-profile court victories — opposing abortion, defending a baker and a website designer who didn't want to work on same-sex marriages.
The Southwest case stems from the airline's decision to fire Charlene Carter, a flight attendant for more than 20 years, after a series of social media posts and private messages aimed at the president of the flight attendant's union for attending an anti-Trump, pro-abortion-rights march in Washington in January 2017.
In one message Carter told the union president, “You truly are Despicable in so many ways," and attached video that purported to show an aborted fetus. An hour later, she sent another video of an aborted fetus.
Carter took the case to arbitration but lost. She then sued, and last year a jury in Dallas awarded her $5.1 million from Southwest and the union. Starr later reduced the judgment to about $800,000 to, he said, comply with federal limits on punitive damages.
Both the airline and the union are challenging the decision before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has not decided whether to hear the case.
