A white mother has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Southwest Airlines, accusing them of making assumptions about her biracial daughter. Mary MacCarthy claims that a flight attendant assumed her child was being trafficked simply because they had different skin tones. The incident occurred when MacCarthy and her then 10-year-old daughter Moira flew from Los Angeles to Denver for her brother’s funeral.
In the lawsuit, filed on August 3, 2023, MacCarthy states that there was no basis for the Southwest employee to believe that she was trafficking her daughter. The airline attendant’s call to the police was allegedly based solely on the assumption that MacCarthy’s biracial child couldn’t possibly be her daughter.
MacCarthy further alleges that they were subjected to blatant racism during the incident, causing them extreme emotional distress. She refers to the flight attendant’s actions as a racist assumption about a mixed-race family in the lawsuit.
Speaking to TMZ on August 9, MacCarthy shared her side of the story, claiming that the flight attendant didn’t even speak with her before reporting suspicions about Moira being trafficked. MacCarthy believes that any confusion could have been cleared up in seconds if the Southwest employee had communicated with her.
Although Southwest eventually refunded MacCarthy’s tickets, she received a subpar apology that failed to acknowledge the real wrongdoing, according to her request.
In addition to seeking punitive and exemplary damages in her lawsuit, MacCarthy wants Southwest flight attendants to receive training on how to handle situations involving diverse families more appropriately.
The statement by MacCarthy’s representative read, Just as the police are constitutionally not permitted to stop-and-frisk young men of color based upon their race, corporate America is similarly not permitted to resort to such profiling in using law enforcement to stop and question racially diverse families simply based upon their divergent races, which is what Southwest did. The lawsuit is designed to bring some accountability to the airline and cause them to re-examine their training and policies.
This lawsuit highlights the importance of addressing racial discrimination and prejudice in all sectors, including the airline industry. Southwest Airlines now faces a legal battle as MacCarthy seeks justice for her daughter and aims to raise awareness about the need for proper training and policies to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
