Mary MacCarthy, Los Angeles, white mom sues Southwest Airlines after being accused of trafficking biracial mixed daughter during flight causing emotional distress.
A white mother has filed a federal lawsuit against Southwest Airlines accusing it of ‘blatant racism,’ after the mom claimed the airliner targeted her for trafficking her black daughter.
Mary MacCarthy, of Los Angeles, in her ‘racial profiling’ lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Colorado, Thursday, is seeking unspecified compensatory damages, for emotional distress, mental anguish and more, along with legal fees.
The ‘white mom’ according to the suit also seeks to change Southwest’s training and policies, after stating an airline employee had assumed her daughter Moira, then 10, couldn’t be hers based on their differing skin tones.
Mom suspected of child trafficking
In Oct. 2021, the suit claims, MacCarthy was traveling to her brother’s funeral with her daughter Moira, then 10, via the San Jose airport, when a Southwest airline employee made the wrong assumption about the pair.
While they were in the air from California to Colorado, a Southwest employee called the Denver Police Department to ‘report Ms. MacCarthy for suspected child trafficking,’ the lawsuit stated.
‘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 the pair walked down the jet bridge after the plane landed, mother and daughter were taken by police for questioning, the court papers stated.
During the questioning, Moira began to ‘break down in tears.’
‘Which would have raised suspicions in the mind of a reasonable person.’
The mother-daughter duo was eventually let go, but MacCarthy claims the airline displayed ‘blatant racism,’ which caused her daughter ‘extreme emotional distress.’
According to a police report, the flight attendant said she flagged the family as suspicious because they were the last to board the plane and asked other passengers to change seats so they could sit together. The flight attendant didn’t see the mother and daughter speak on the plane and claimed MacCarthy told her daughter not to talk to the flight crew, NBC News reported.
MacCarthy denied the claims that she and her daughter didn’t talk on the flight or that she prohibited her daughter from speaking to the flight crew. She also said she was called 10 days after the incident by a human trafficking unit investigator from the Denver Police Department.
‘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.’
‘To this day, when Moira and I are out in public — and especially at airports or on planes — I’m hyperaware that we might be judged and reported for any interaction we have with each other,‘ MacCarthy told Newsweek.
Stereotyping
‘It’s a strange feeling to be on alert about your most basic behaviors with your child, and it’s exhausting. As for Moira, she still clams up and doesn’t want to talk about what happened.’
MacCarthy’s lawyer, David Lane, said the purpose of the lawsuit is for Southwest to be held accountable and for the airliner to re-examine its training and policies.
‘In using racial profiling to cause the Denver police to stop innocent travelers, Southwest Airlines has attempted to address serious the criminal activity of sex-trafficking through use of a stereotypical, easy formula,’ the attorney told Newsweek.
In November 2021, the airline said it would conduct an internal investigation.
‘We were disheartened to learn of this mother’s account when traveling with her daughter,’ the airline said at the time.
MacCarthy at first asked just for an apology from Southwest, but 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.’
Southwest asked for comment on the filing has responded it does not discuss pending litigation.
