A white mother is suing one of the US’ biggest airlines, claiming it accused her of trafficking her black daughter, reported New York Post.
Los Angeles resident Mary MacCarthy filed a lawsuit against the airline on Thursday for "blatant racism."
The mother claims the airline employee assumed her daughter Moira, then 10, couldn't be hers because of their different skin tones, and she is now trying to reform Southwest's standards and training.
For emotional suffering, she is also asking for specific compensatory damages. in addition to legal fees, emotional pain is another, as per New York Post.
According to the lawsuit, MacCarthy and her daughter Moira, who was 10 at the time, were travelling to her brother's funeral in October 2021 via the San Jose airport when a Southwest airline employee made an incorrect assumption about the two.
A Southwest employee called the Denver Police Department to "report Ms MacCarthy for suspected child trafficking" while they were in the air travelling from California to Colorado, as per the lawsuit, which was filed in US District Court in Colorado.
“There was no basis to believe that Ms. MacCarthy was trafficking her daughter,” the lawsuit states.
“The only basis for the Southwest employee’s call was the belief that Ms. MacCarthy’s daughter could not possibly be her daughter because she is a biracial child.”
As mother-daughter walked down the jet bridge after the plane landed, they were whisked off for questioning by police, the court papers said, according to New York Post.
During the questioning, Moira began to “break down in tears.”
The mother-daughter duo was apparently let go, but MacCarthy said that the airline displayed “blatant racism,” which caused her daughter “extreme emotional distress.”
“The Southwest employee on the plane reported Plaintiff MacCarthy to the police without any conversation or contact with either Plaintiff which would have raised suspicions in the mind of a reasonable person.”
In November 2021, the airline said it would conduct an internal probe.
“We were disheartened to learn of this mother’s account when travelling with her daughter,” the airline said at the time.
MacCarthy at first asked just for an apology from Southwest, but then she said she never received one.
The mother said the interaction made her feel “attacked.”
“Customers should know the true nature of the company they’re doing business with,” she said, New York Post reported.