A White motherwho was accused of trafficking her biracial daughteras the two were flying via Southwest in 2021 is suing the airlines over racial discrimination.
In a lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, dated Aug. 3, Mary MacCarthy and her daughter Moira, who was 10 at the time of the incident, were traveling from Los Angeles to Denver on Oct. 22, 2021, to attend the funeral of MacCarthy’s brother.
According to the suit, during the family’s flight, a Southwest employee notified Denver police to report MacCarthy on suspected child trafficking “for no reason other than the different color of her daughter’s skin from her own. There was no basis to believe that Ms. MacCarthy was trafficking her daughter and 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,” per the filing.
Mary MacCarthy
The suit further added that Denver authorities confronted MacCarthy and her daughter at Denver International Airport and stated that they were handed information that MacCarthy was suspected of child trafficking because she was White and her daughter was biracial.
Mary MacCarthy and daughter Moira are suing Southwest Airlines, who they accuses of racial profiling.Mary MacCarthy
The filing further stated that the incident involving MacCarthy and her daughter is based on a “racist assumption about a mixed‐race family."
MacCarthy is seeking punitive and exemplary damages, per the suit.
In a statement shared Monday with PEOPLE, David Lane, MacCarthy’s attorney, wrote: “In using racial profiling to cause the Denver police to stop innocent travelers, Southwest Airlines has attempted to address the serious crime of sex-trafficking through use of a stereotypical, easy formula. Just as the police are constitutionally not permitted to stop-and-frisk young men of color based upon their race, corporate America is similarly not permitted to resort to such profiling in using law enforcement to stop and question racially diverse families simply based upon their divergent races, which is what Southwest did. The lawsuit is designed to bring some accountability to the airline and cause them to re-examine their training and policies.”
When reached for comment, a representative from Southwest told PEOPLE in an email: “We don’t have anything to add right now on this pending litigation.”
However, according to MacCarthy, they told her: “‘We’re here to talk to you because you and your daughter were reported as having suspicious behavior.’ At that point in my mind, it clicked that we had probably been profiled. I’ve been raising this girl for 10 years; she’s my biological daughter, and I knew things like this could happen.”
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“I want Southwest Airlines and the Denver police to be held accountable for what is undoubtedly a case of racial profiling involving a 10-year-old Black girl, who was already suffering the worst day in her life — a death in her family,” MacCarthy said.
source: people.com
