In early August, a furor broke out among legal commentators when District Judge Brantley Starr in Texas ordered lawyers for Southwest Airlines to submit to training on the rights of religious believers conducted by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a well-known and controversial right-wing litigation group. The furor is well-founded, but one may hope that its lessons extend beyond this case.
The judge's order came in the aftermath of a high-ticket religious discrimination verdict. Southwest employee Charlene Carter had sent dozens of messages to her union president berating her for countenancing abortion through union support of the national Women's March. Many of these messages were abusive, persistent, and uncivil to the point where Southwest interpreted them as harassment and fired Carter. She sued, claiming the company had not adequately accommodated her religious beliefs as required by federal and Texas law. (Southwest has argued that disapproval of abortion should be seen not as a species of religious belief, which employers are obliged to accommodate, but as a species of ethical and political belief, which neither Texas nor federal law treats as protected categories.) A jury found in Carter's favor, awarding her $5 million in damages, which Starr later reduced to about $800,000 to comply with limits on punitive awards.
