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Trump Judge Ordered Airline To Take Classes From Anti-Gay Activists. 5th Circuit Says, 'Um, No.'

Even the FIFTH Circuit knows this isn't constitutional.

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465547Apparently it’s not constitutional to order a company to take “anti-discrimination” classes from a recognized hate group. Who knew?

Certainly not Judge Brantley Starr, the Trump-appointed Northern District of Texas judge who ordered Southwest Airlines to take classes on how to avoid discrimination from the Alliance Defending Freedom — the same people helping bigoted website designers and ginning up law school free speech “controversies.” Starr had taken a break from grandstanding about never hiring clerks from Columbia Law over his objection to his name not being in the papers enough protesting undergrads, to force the airline to pay a bunch of anti-LGBTQ+ activists to explain discrimination law.

Even the Fifth Circuit thought this amounted to several bridges too far, staying Starr’s contempt order in an unpublished per curiam opinion, noting the “likely unconstitutional nature” of Starr’s trolling.

Southwest Airlines had fired a flight attendant for sending a series of loony social media messages attacking her coworkers, claiming that her union was engaged in child sex trafficking and “helped in Harvesting Baby Parts / Organs, and Sexual Abuse!” because the union participated in the Women’s March. Southwest felt that this violated their workplace civility rules. The flight attendant called it religious discrimination. She won and the airline was ordered to write on the chalkboard that it would not religiously discriminate anymore.

But Southwest’s official statement committed that the airline “does not” discriminate instead of “may not” discriminate, so Judge Starr threw a hissy fit and held the airline in contempt. Why is this different? Unclear, but Judge Starr wrote a bunch of stuff about Adam and Eve and how that means “does” and “may” are contemptuously different words.

Then he ordered Southwest to take classes from ADF — at the airline’s expense, of course.

This was a publicity stunt from jump, with the added twist of forcing a major corporation to involuntarily fund ADF’s activity. Southwest immediately objected seeking a stay, which the plaintiff attempted to block with one of the most disingenuous arguments committed to paper, saying that Southwest had to undergo the training pending appeal because otherwise there’s no way to guarantee that it will comply with future potentially unconstitutional orders before seeking an appeal.

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Unsurprisingly, this did not sway the Fifth Circuit. Or, maybe, surprisingly given the Fifth Circuit’s reputation these days.

Either way, the Fifth Circuit recognized that forcing the airline to sit through bigotry lessons before vindicating their constitutional rights presents an irreparable harm. Additionally, the panel noted that the scope of the order far exceeded curing the alleged contempt even if it didn’t otherwise violate the Constitution.

But don’t worry about Ken Starr’s nephew earning an indirect scolding from the circuit… he’ll find another PR stunt to get his name out there. We believe in him!

(Opinion on the next page…)

Religious-liberty training order likely violates lawyers’ constitutional rights, 5th Circuit says [ABA Journal]

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Earlier: Trump Judge Orders In-House Lawyers To Take Classes From Anti-LGBTQ Group
Plaintiff Breaks Record For Most Disingenuous Argument Ever Briefed As Southwest Airlines Seeks To Stay Anti-LGBTQ Training Order
Federal Judges Say They Won’t Hire From Columbia, Leveraging Their Public Offices To Bully An Institution They Don’t Like

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