Just for more context, among other terrible things the Alliance Defending Freedom has done, they wrote the model legislation that Mississippi adopted as the Gestational Age Act, which banned...
I wonder if this ADF would be just as supportive of anything other than Christian fundementalists. Especially atheists. I'm betting not given their history. Much like FIRE, this group is quite a...
Alliance Defending Freedom
I wonder if this ADF would be just as supportive of anything other than Christian fundementalists. Especially atheists.
I'm betting not given their history. Much like FIRE, this group is quite a bit more politically motivated, and it shows in the cases they choose to support.
I mean, there are definitely folk who believe the first amendment doesn't apply to atheists. Here's an example from some religious weirdo with a JD: I don't know if ADF subscribes to this belief,...
I mean, there are definitely folk who believe the first amendment doesn't apply to atheists. Here's an example from some religious weirdo with a JD:
In sum, the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment do not regard atheism as a religion. Atheists do not have a constitutional heckler’s veto over any expression of theistic religion in the public square, nor do they have a right to say their version of “prayers” before legislative sessions because theists are requested to do so.
I don't know if ADF subscribes to this belief, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of their lawyers do. They have previously supported the position that "religious freedom" allows an evangelical foster care center to bar non-Christian (or gay) applicants, and as you said, I doubt they would defend this position if the roles were reversed.
Organizations are free to name themselves whatever they want. It doesn't actually mean they're Allied with anyone, that Freedom is under attack, that they're the ones Defending it, or that they...
Organizations are free to name themselves whatever they want. It doesn't actually mean they're Allied with anyone, that Freedom is under attack, that they're the ones Defending it, or that they actually care about the definition of the word Freedom. I wouldn't take any meaning from their name, just look at their actions.
I think the classic example of this is the DPRK, where the only true part of the name is that they're located on the Korean peninsula.
The previous history of this case is rather abbreviated. There is more about it here. I'm not sure what sort of email should be a fireable offense. I guess it would depend on the email and the...
The previous history of this case is rather abbreviated. There is more about it here.
Carter charged that she was fired after sending strongly worded messages to the president of the flight attendants’ union to complain that the official had attended the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., the day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017. She called the union leader “despicable.”
The president of Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union did not respond to that and other messages, but Southwest summoned Carter to a meeting and later fired her.
A Dallas jury ruled in Carter’s favor in July, deciding that Southwest should pay Carter $4.15 million and the union should pay $950,000.
The judge this week reduced that award to $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from Southwest and $300,000 from the union, $150,000 in back pay and about $60,000 in interest.
I'm not sure what sort of email should be a fireable offense. I guess it would depend on the email and the circumstances. Being in a union might come with some protections, depending on the employment contract?
primary sources are here from the plaintiff's initial complaint (pdf): from Southwest's reply brief (pdf): two years of private messages sent to the union president's personal Facebook account,...
I'm not sure what sort of email should be a fireable offense.
a. At 11:22 AM, Carter sent a message containing a video showing an aborted infant. Carter told President Stone:
“This is what you supported during your Paid Leave with others at the Women’s MARCH in DC….You truly are Despicable in so many ways…by the way the RECALL is going to Happen and you are limited in the days you will be living off of all the [Southwest Airlines Flight Attendants]..cant wait to see you back on line.
b. About an hour later, at 12:33 PM, Carter sent President Stone a different video of an aborted infant. Carter’s message stated: “TWU-AFL-CIO and 556 are supporting this Murder . . .”
c. Approximately 30 minutes later, at 1:00 PM, Carter sent President Stone a third private Facebook message that contained a picture of women wearing hats depicting female genitalia. Carter’s message also stated:
Did you all dress up like this…Wonder how this will be coded in the LM2 Financials…cause I know we paid for this along with your Despicable Party you hosted for signing the Contract….The RECALL [of the Local 556 Executive Board] is going to Happen we are even getting more signatures due to other [flight attendants] finding out what you guys do with our MONEY!!! Can’t wait for you to have to be just a regular flight attendant again and not stealing from our DUES for things like this!
d. Later that day, Carter sent President Stone a second message via Facebook with a link to an online article discussing how one of the leaders of the January 2017 Women’s March was a convicted terrorist. Carter told Stone:
Did you know this….Hmmmm seems a little counter productive don’t you think….you are nothing but a SHEEP in Wolves Clothing or you are just so uneducated you have not [sic] clue who or what you were marching for! Either way you should not be using our DUES to have Marched in this despicable show of TRASH!”
By February 2017, Carter had spent over four years publicly objecting to the Union’s conduct and Stone’s leadership, and approximately two years sending unsolicited messages to Stone’s private Facebook account, criticizing Stone’s performance as Union President. Southwest never disciplined Carter for her behavior. But in 2017, the nature and tone of Carter’s private messages to Stone drastically changed.
On February 14, 2017, Carter sent Stone five private Facebook messages. These messages contained graphic images and videos of aborted fetuses and accused Stone of supporting murder. Carter knew the images were disturbing at the time she sent them. Just one week earlier, Carter described one of the videos she would later send to Stone as follows: “WARNING this is VERY GRAPHIC!!” . Feeling threatened and harassed by Carter’s private messages, Stone reported the incident to the Company. Carter contends that despite tolerating years of unsolicited private messages and public criticism regarding the Union, Stone reported Carter because of her opposition to Local 556’s leadership.
two years of private messages sent to the union president's personal Facebook account, criticizing the union in general, and then escalating to harassment about abortion, including videos of aborted fetuses and accusing the union of supporting murder.
yeah, I can see why she got fired.
and as is completely typical of this brand of conservative politics, this harassment was transmogrified into "religious liberty". from the judge's order (pdf):
The Court ENJOINS Defendants from discriminating against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs, including—but not limited to—those expressed on social media and those concerning abortion.
The Court ENJOINS Defendants from failing to reasonably accommodate Southwest flight attendants’ sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, and observances
and ultimately resulting in this Trump-appointed judge ordering the attorneys to take this "religious liberty" training from the ADF, which the SPLC categorizes as a hate group.
they're in the Northern District of Texas, so an appeal would go to the 5th Circuit. of judges not on senior status, you've got 1 Clinton, 2 Obama, and 1 Biden appointee, compared to 2 from...
they're in the Northern District of Texas, so an appeal would go to the 5th Circuit.
of judges not on senior status, you've got 1 Clinton, 2 Obama, and 1 Biden appointee, compared to 2 from Reagan, 4 from W Bush and 6 from Trump.
I'm...uhh...not optimistic about their chances on appeal.
That's fair. It's possible the Supreme Court would pick it up but not certain, likewise not certain the Supreme Court would side with my preferred winners. Ugh.
That's fair. It's possible the Supreme Court would pick it up but not certain, likewise not certain the Supreme Court would side with my preferred winners. Ugh.
Well, if I sexually harassed an employee via email, that would certainly be a firable offence. Pretty sure if I called my boss despicable to her face I'd be fired in short order as well. Doing it...
Well, if I sexually harassed an employee via email, that would certainly be a firable offence. Pretty sure if I called my boss despicable to her face I'd be fired in short order as well. Doing it via email even dumber because then its in writing.
The union does have protections in place, and that may come down to some of the ruling...but the choice of religious brainwashing as punishment, rather than proper bias training from professionals, is suspect.
Without knowing more, I'd say the union leader was probably correct to not reply, and take it directly to HR or legal. And that any legal rulings coming out of Texas should be under immense scrutiny for bias.
I'd imagine the sort that would get you fired if you said it in person. Obviously there's a lot being left out, but it sounds to me like she wrote an email with workplace inappropriate content...
I'm not sure what sort of email should be a fireable offense.
I'd imagine the sort that would get you fired if you said it in person.
Southwest summoned Carter to a meeting and later fired her.
Obviously there's a lot being left out, but it sounds to me like she wrote an email with workplace inappropriate content (ie. something which could be construed as harassment), then when she was brought in to discuss why it was inappropriate she instead doubled down.
Directly communicating with another employee that they are "despicable" is workplace harassment. Someone with a history of harassing employees, who can't understand what's wrong with their behavior, is a liability. Termination under such circumstances would be perfectly reasonable. Given it's a union, however, Southwest may have been contractual obligations that were ignored during the disciplinary process which would open them up to a beach of contract claim.
I believe that’s largely true of “at-will employment” but there was a union in this case. We aren’t going to learn much by talking about general principles; someone could research this case if...
I believe that’s largely true of “at-will employment” but there was a union in this case. We aren’t going to learn much by talking about general principles; someone could research this case if they’re interested in going deeper.
(I also asked what should be a firing offense and that’s less about what the law is and more about what it should be. That depends on the details too. It would matter to me whether the email was sent using work email or on a politics mailing list, for example.)
Slightly modified the headline to use s descriptor for the group pulled from the Wikipedia article. I don't know anything about this type of case, but it seems odd to me to order training from one...
Slightly modified the headline to use s descriptor for the group pulled from the Wikipedia article.
I don't know anything about this type of case, but it seems odd to me to order training from one specific group as a "punishment" for contempt. Feels like there must be some conflict of interest involved, but--as I already said--I have no idea if this is normal for some reason.
I think you raise an important point but I don't fully agree with you. We have the USA politics megathread in ~ news but I'm not sure this belongs there. I don't think however that the fact that...
I think you raise an important point but I don't fully agree with you.
We have the USA politics megathread in ~ news but I'm not sure this belongs there. I don't think however that the fact that the company is an airline is the important part of the story. I have advocated for a ~ law or ~ legal but been told that for example antitrust cases in the tech industry belong in ~ tech. Which makes sense I guess, but the issue in this case is not about transportation or safety. It's about human resources issues as US law changes that could apply to any US business. So I don't know where it fits.
I do think that there should be a tag re stories related to the implementation of the right wing agenda worldwide but I don't know what it should be.
Seems like it’s employment law rather than commercial aviation law? It would be nice to have a ~life.work or ~law group, but for now I put things like that under ~misc.
Seems like it’s employment law rather than commercial aviation law? It would be nice to have a ~life.work or ~law group, but for now I put things like that under ~misc.
I went ahead and added a politics tag to it, since it does read as inherently political to me. Could be worth breaking it out into a politics.usa tag, but that would require a bit of migration for...
I went ahead and added a politics tag to it, since it does read as inherently political to me. Could be worth breaking it out into a politics.usa tag, but that would require a bit of migration for historical topics.
Just for more context, among other terrible things the Alliance Defending Freedom has done, they wrote the model legislation that Mississippi adopted as the Gestational Age Act, which banned abortions after 15 weeks. An abortion provider sued, leading to the high-profile Dobbs decision that overturned Roe.
Here's an article on the matter:
I wonder if this ADF would be just as supportive of anything other than Christian fundementalists. Especially atheists.
I'm betting not given their history. Much like FIRE, this group is quite a bit more politically motivated, and it shows in the cases they choose to support.
I mean, there are definitely folk who believe the first amendment doesn't apply to atheists. Here's an example from some religious weirdo with a JD:
I don't know if ADF subscribes to this belief, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of their lawyers do. They have previously supported the position that "religious freedom" allows an evangelical foster care center to bar non-Christian (or gay) applicants, and as you said, I doubt they would defend this position if the roles were reversed.
And that is why I'm a member of The Satanic Temple.
Organizations are free to name themselves whatever they want. It doesn't actually mean they're Allied with anyone, that Freedom is under attack, that they're the ones Defending it, or that they actually care about the definition of the word Freedom. I wouldn't take any meaning from their name, just look at their actions.
I think the classic example of this is the DPRK, where the only true part of the name is that they're located on the Korean peninsula.
The previous history of this case is rather abbreviated. There is more about it here.
I'm not sure what sort of email should be a fireable offense. I guess it would depend on the email and the circumstances. Being in a union might come with some protections, depending on the employment contract?
primary sources are here
from the plaintiff's initial complaint (pdf):
from Southwest's reply brief (pdf):
two years of private messages sent to the union president's personal Facebook account, criticizing the union in general, and then escalating to harassment about abortion, including videos of aborted fetuses and accusing the union of supporting murder.
yeah, I can see why she got fired.
and as is completely typical of this brand of conservative politics, this harassment was transmogrified into "religious liberty". from the judge's order (pdf):
and ultimately resulting in this Trump-appointed judge ordering the attorneys to take this "religious liberty" training from the ADF, which the SPLC categorizes as a hate group.
It seems worth appealing to me imho but we will see what they choose to do.
they're in the Northern District of Texas, so an appeal would go to the 5th Circuit.
of judges not on senior status, you've got 1 Clinton, 2 Obama, and 1 Biden appointee, compared to 2 from Reagan, 4 from W Bush and 6 from Trump.
I'm...uhh...not optimistic about their chances on appeal.
That's fair. It's possible the Supreme Court would pick it up but not certain, likewise not certain the Supreme Court would side with my preferred winners. Ugh.
Thanks for looking into it. Yeah, in my non-expert opinion, I think that counts as harassment.
Well, if I sexually harassed an employee via email, that would certainly be a firable offence. Pretty sure if I called my boss despicable to her face I'd be fired in short order as well. Doing it via email even dumber because then its in writing.
The union does have protections in place, and that may come down to some of the ruling...but the choice of religious brainwashing as punishment, rather than proper bias training from professionals, is suspect.
Without knowing more, I'd say the union leader was probably correct to not reply, and take it directly to HR or legal. And that any legal rulings coming out of Texas should be under immense scrutiny for bias.
Not knowing about the logistics of how unions work, would the chapter (?) president be another employee or would they actually work for the union?
That is probably a case by case thing. Would take a member of the union to speak directly to it.
I'd imagine the sort that would get you fired if you said it in person.
Obviously there's a lot being left out, but it sounds to me like she wrote an email with workplace inappropriate content (ie. something which could be construed as harassment), then when she was brought in to discuss why it was inappropriate she instead doubled down.
Directly communicating with another employee that they are "despicable" is workplace harassment. Someone with a history of harassing employees, who can't understand what's wrong with their behavior, is a liability. Termination under such circumstances would be perfectly reasonable. Given it's a union, however, Southwest may have been contractual obligations that were ignored during the disciplinary process which would open them up to a beach of contract claim.
That’s a good point about harassment. I don’t think there’s much more to usefully be said without looking into the details, though.
I believe that’s largely true of “at-will employment” but there was a union in this case. We aren’t going to learn much by talking about general principles; someone could research this case if they’re interested in going deeper.
(I also asked what should be a firing offense and that’s less about what the law is and more about what it should be. That depends on the details too. It would matter to me whether the email was sent using work email or on a politics mailing list, for example.)
In the US. Different countries have different laws for this. But yes, this story is about a US company. Just want to be technically accurate.
Slightly modified the headline to use s descriptor for the group pulled from the Wikipedia article.
I don't know anything about this type of case, but it seems odd to me to order training from one specific group as a "punishment" for contempt. Feels like there must be some conflict of interest involved, but--as I already said--I have no idea if this is normal for some reason.
Off topic, but I'm not sure if this belongs in transportation? Kinda feels like we need a US politics community for quarantine purposes.
I think you raise an important point but I don't fully agree with you.
We have the USA politics megathread in ~ news but I'm not sure this belongs there. I don't think however that the fact that the company is an airline is the important part of the story. I have advocated for a ~ law or ~ legal but been told that for example antitrust cases in the tech industry belong in ~ tech. Which makes sense I guess, but the issue in this case is not about transportation or safety. It's about human resources issues as US law changes that could apply to any US business. So I don't know where it fits.
I do think that there should be a tag re stories related to the implementation of the right wing agenda worldwide but I don't know what it should be.
Seems like it’s employment law rather than commercial aviation law? It would be nice to have a ~life.work or ~law group, but for now I put things like that under ~misc.
@mycketforvirrad, @Cfabbro, would you be willing to take a look at this discussion? Thank you.
I certainly didn't put it in ~transport.
Maybe we can get it moved again.
I went ahead and added a
politicstag to it, since it does read as inherently political to me. Could be worth breaking it out into apolitics.usatag, but that would require a bit of migration for historical topics.