The U.S. Justice Department has filed a statement of interest in an ongoing lawsuit against Southwest Airlines, which accuses the Dallas-based carrier of race discrimination because it offered free flights to winners of a special university program only open to Hispanic students.
Southwest Airlines ran its controversial ¡Lánzate!/Take Off! travel program for 20 years, awarding around 185 lucky Hispanic students a year with four free flights anywhere across Southwest’s domestic network.
The program was designed to help students facing financial hardship attend a university at least 200 miles from their home, but Southwest excluded any other race apart from students of Hispanic origin from the program.
The alleged discriminatory practice caught the attention of the American Alliance for Equal Rights after it learned of two non-Hispanic students – one Asian and one White – who applied for the program but were quickly rejected because of their race.
The Alliance filed its lawsuit against Southwest in May 2024, and in an attempt to avoid a drawn-out legal battle, Southwest quickly shuttered the program and sent the non-profit legal group a check for just $0.01 to reflect the nominal damages that the Alliance was seeking.
Rather than accepting the check and considering the case closed, however, the Alliance rejected Southwest’s offer and asked the court to hear the case regardless of whether the airline had guaranteed never to run the program in the future.
Last December, U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater ruled that the Alliance was within its rights to reject Southwest’s payment and, therefore, the case would be heard in court.
While the legal wrangling is ongoing, the Justice Department has now gotten itself involved in the lawsuit, filing a statement of interest in which it told the North Texas district court, “The United States has a strong interest in protecting the civil rights of all Americans, including the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics.”
It is the view of the Justice Department that “The Alliance has presented direct evidence sufficient to support its claim of racial” and that unless Southwest can either produce evidence that it didn’t discriminate or had “compelling justification” to do so, then the court should move to summary judgment in favor of the Alliance.
“Every person in the United States should have equal and nondiscriminatory rights to make and enforce contracts, and race should never be a consideration,” commented Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon after the statement of interest was filed on Thursday.
“The Department of Justice is working to end discrimination using all of the tools at our disposal,” Dhillon continued.
Good.