On Thursday, a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals partially overturned a previous ruling that found Southwest Airlines acted with religious discrimination when it fired a flight attendant who shared pro-life messages on Facebook.
In 2017, Charlene Carter filed a lawsuit against Southwest, arguing that she was unfairly fired from her flight attendant position because of her pro-life stance. When the flight attendant union, TWU Local 556, decided to participate in the 2017 Women’s March, Carter shared her criticism of the decision on Facebook because of the March’s connection to pro-abortion messaging and Planned Parenthood. She sent a pro-life Facebook message to the president of the union and shared additional pro-life messages on her Facebook page because she saw the union’s participation in the March as union-sponsored advocacy for abortion.
Southwest fired Carter, stating that she violated its social media policy and that her messages amounted to bullying and harassment. Carter filed a lawsuit against Southwest and the union, alleging religious discrimination, and a jury ruled in her favor in 2022.
A panel for the Fifth Circuit partially overturned that decision on Thursday, finding that Carter had not shown evidence that supported her discrimination claim based on religious beliefs because she was fired for her conduct, not simply her beliefs. The panel also overturned an injunction that prohibited Southwest and the union from discriminating against any Southwest flight attendant for religious beliefs and reversed a sanction that would have required Southwest attorneys to receive “religious liberty training.”
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However, the panel upheld the previous ruling that stated Southwest unlawfully refused to accommodate Carter’s religious practices as well as the jury’s verdict in Carter’s favor regarding her claims of religious discrimination against the union, including that it breached the Railway Labor Act duty of fair representation. It upheld the jury’s decision that the union discriminated against Carter and attempted to cause her to be fired. It also ruled that a union “attempting to cause” an employee to be fired is an actionable offense under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
“The Court of Appeals has affirmed that both TWU union bosses and Southwest Airlines violated Carter’s legal rights when the union instigated her termination by Southwest in response to voicing her opposition to union political activism, including union activities that violated her religious beliefs,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which represents Carter in the lawsuit.
