A US district judge has ruled that Southwest Airlines must face a lawsuit over a ‘discriminatory’ program that awarded Hispanic university students free flights, despite efforts by the Dallas-based carrier to have the suit thrown out of court.
Southwest Airlines ran the ¡Lánzate!/Take Off! travel award program for 20 years, awarding around 185 lucky students a year with four free flights anywhere across Southwest’s domestic network.
The program was designed to help students attending a university at least 200 miles from their home, but Southwest would only consider Hispanic students and required candidates to identify their Hispanic country of origin in their applications.
In May, the American Alliance for Equal Rights filed a racial discrimination lawsuit in a Texas federal court against Southwest, accusing the airline of discriminating against non-Hispanic students.
The Alliance brought its action against Southwest after two non-Hispanic students – one Asian and one White – complained about being excluded from the program, solely on the grounds that they didn’t have Hispanic heritage.
Both students had completed their applications and written accompanying essays but couldn’t even submit their work for consideration because the application asked them to certify that they were Hispanic.
The Alliance, which describes itself as a non-profit that is “dedicated to challenging distinctions made on the basis of race and ethnicity in federal and state courts,” asked the court to slap Southwest with an injunction and restraining order to have the program shut down, along with paying nominal damages of just $0.01.
In response to the lawsuit, Southwest quickly shuttered the ¡Lánzate!/Take Off! and sent the Alliance a check for $0.01, before asking the court to have the lawsuit dismissed.
However, the Alliance rejected Southwest’s payment and asked the court to hear the lawsuit, despite the fact that a covenant created by Southwest means that the program can not be restarted.
U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater accepted Southwest’s request to have the suit dismissed on the grounds that an injunction and restraining order were no longer required but accepted that the Alliance had every right to reject the $0.01 payment.
“Southwest’s unsuccessful tender of one cent to Alliance was plainly an unaccepted offer that could not moot Alliance’s nominal damages claims,” Judge Fitzwater wrote in his opinion order.
Free flights based on your race!