A federal decide has ordered Southwest Airways and the Transport Staff Union (TWU) to reinstate a former flight attendant after she was fired for her pro-life beliefs.

Southwest Airways has the status of being one of many friendliest airways, identified for his or her customer support and benevolent flight attendants. Its imaginative and prescient and objective are, in any case, “To be the world’s most liked … airline” and to “join Individuals to what’s vital of their lives by means of pleasant, dependable, and low-cost air journey.” And the corporate’s inventory image is “LUV.”

Sadly, Southwest might not be particularly pleasant to their staff who’re outspoken about their pro-life beliefs.

Beforehand, the Every day Citizen wrote about flight attendant Charlene Carter, who’s a pro-life Christian and labored for Southwest from 1996 till 2017.

As we reported, “Her employment got here to an abrupt finish shortly after she discovered that the president of her union, Audrey Stone of the Transport Staff Union Native 556, and different union officers had attended the Girls’s March in Washington, D.C., and used union dues to attend.

“The Girls’s March is understood for being notoriously pro-abortion, and Ms. Carter was upset that her union dues have been going to help abortion. And he or she let Stone learn about it on social media.”

In response to the Dallas Morning Information, Carter wrote in a Fb message to Stone, “That is what [abortion] you supported throughout your paid depart with others on the Girls’s March in D.C. You really are despicable in so some ways.”

After Stone reported Carter’s feedback to Southwest, the airline fired her per week later.

However Carter wasn’t achieved – she then sued Southwest Airways and TWU for wrongful termination.

In July 2022, a federal jury ordered that Carter be awarded $5.1 million for her wrongful termination and the discrimination towards her beliefs about abortion. The award consisted of $300,000 in misplaced wages and advantages, $1 million for previous ache and struggling, $3.5 million in punitive damages towards Southwest and $300,000 in punitive damages towards TWU.

Subsequently, Choose Brantley Starr, an appointee of former President Donald J. Trump, needed to scale back the awarded quantity to $810,180 – the utmost allowed below federal regulation.

Now, in a latest resolution, the U.S. District Courtroom for the North District of Texas ordered Southwest and TWU to provide Carter her job again.

“Baggage fly free with Southwest,” Choose Starr wrote. “However free speech didn’t fly in any respect with Southwest on this case.”

“Southwest might ‘wanna get away’ from Carter as a result of she would possibly proceed to specific her beliefs, however the jury discovered that Southwest unlawfully terminated Carter for protected expressions,” the decide added.

In an announcement following the court docket’s resolution, Nationwide Proper to Work Basis President Mark Combine stated the next:

Southwest and TWU union officers made Ms. Carter pay an unconscionable worth simply because she determined to talk out towards the political actions of union officers in accordance together with her deeply held spiritual beliefs. This resolution vindicates Ms. Carter’s rights – but it surely’s additionally a stark reminder of the retribution that union officers will mete out towards staff who refuse to toe the union line.

However in line with Southwest Airways spokeswoman Brandy King, the corporate will enchantment the choice to the fifth U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals.

“Southwest Airways has a demonstrated historical past of supporting our staff’ rights to specific their opinions when achieved in a respectful method,” King stated. “We’re within the technique of assessing the necessities of the latest judgment as we transfer ahead with our plans for an enchantment.”

Let’s hope that the fifth Circuit – one of many extra conservative appellate courts – continues to uphold Carter’s proper to talk freely and brazenly about her pro-life convictions.

If Ms. Stone is allowed to talk freely on the pro-abortion Girls’s March, then Ms. Carter ought to be allowed to talk freely about her pro-life convictions.

The case is Carter v. Transport Staff Union of America Native 556.

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Southwest Flight Attendant Awarded $5.1 Million in Free Speech Case About Abortion

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