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The basic elements of the story are familiar. It involves a Republican-appointed judge, a culture war clash, and a bizarre court ruling. But while we might be accustomed to developments similar to the controversy surrounding Carter v. Southwest Airlines, this is proving to be a highly unusual case.
As my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin explained last week, “A Donald Trump-appointed judge in Texas ordered lawyers for Southwest Airlines to get ‘religious freedom’ training from a Christian legal group that litigates against abortion and anti-discrimination laws. Yes, really.”
As Reuters reported, this training is now on hold — at least for now.
A Texas federal judge on Thursday gave lawyers at Southwest Airlines Inc a brief reprieve from his unusual requirement that they attend “religious liberty training” conducted by a conservative Christian group. U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr in Dallas said he would not enforce the ruling from last week, which some experts said was unprecedented, until he decides whether to pause it pending Southwest’s appeal that will likely take months or longer.
If you haven’t heard about this one, it’s probably worth backing up and reviewing how we arrived at this point.
In 2017, members of the Southwest flight attendants union attended the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. This apparently didn’t sit well with Charlene Carter, a longtime flight attendant who sent messages to the union president, complaining about the event.
Carter not only called the union president “despicable” in one message, she also included what appeared to be a video of an aborted fetus. “This is what you supported during your Paid Leave with others at the Women’s MARCH in DC,” Carter wrote. An hour later, she reportedly sent another video of an aborted fetus.
This led the airline to fire Carter, concluding that she’d “crossed the boundaries of acceptable behavior.”
Carter took the matter to arbitration, but lost. She then filed a lawsuit, claiming religious discrimination, and a Texas jury ruled in her favor. The airline, not surprisingly, has appealed.
But that’s not the most unusual part of this story.
U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr — a young, Trump-appointed judge who also happens to be Ken Starr’s nephew — directed the airline to let flight attendants know that Southwest “may not discriminate against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs.”
Soon after, Southwest sent a message explaining that the court “ordered us to inform you that Southwest does not discriminate against our Employees for their religious practices and beliefs.”
Starr saw the difference between “may not” and “does not” as dramatic, and to punish Southwest for what he perceived as a deliberate decision not to cooperate with a court order, the conservative jurist ordered the airline’s lawyers to undergo eight hours of “religious liberty” training.
“Fortunately,” Starr said, “there are esteemed nonprofit organizations that are dedicated to preserving free speech and religious freedom.” He specifically pointed to a group called the Alliance Defending Freedom — which is so far to the right on issues such as reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights that it’s awfully tough for a mainstream observer to characterize it as “esteemed.”
The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus wrote in a column last week, “Adjectives fail me here.”
This is not even close to normal. Let’s assume that Southwest trampled on Carter’s religious rights (though this seems highly dubious because there is scant evidence that the airline was motivated by animus toward Carter’s Christian faith). Let’s also assume that Southwest flagrantly defied the judge’s order (though the airline offered to send out a revised notice to employees). Let’s further assume that this behavior justified the extraordinary step of holding the company in contempt. But even if we assume all of that, the notion of subjecting lawyers to a reeducation campaign by the likes of the ADF is tantamount to creating a government-endorsed thought police.
Plenty of legal experts came to similar conclusions.
Southwest appealed the order, arguing that Starr’s punishment is, among other things, unconstitutional. The judge yesterday agreed to put his order on hold while the process continues. Or put another way, the lawyers, for the time being, won’t have to participate in the “reeducation campaign” envisioned by the young, Trump-appointed judge, who was confirmed to the federal bench by 51 Senate Republicans — including ostensible “moderates” such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
I don’t imagine we’ve heard the last of this one.