Three Black men filed a lawsuit in federal court on May 29 against American Airlines that alleged they and five other Black men were removed from a January flight during an instance of “blatant and egregious racial discrimination.”
The lawsuit was filed by Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph, and Xavier Veal. According to NPR, their filing claims an American Airlines representative told them to deplane after boarding and return to their gate for rebooking. The flight the men were removed from was leaving Phoenix and headed to New York City.
Only the aforementioned plaintiffs are taking legal action with this specific lawsuit, but eight Black men in total were booted off the flight. An employee at the gate told the men they’d been removed because of a complaint about body odor. However, the three plaintiffs alleged they were never told their body odors were an issue.
The men allegedly weren’t traveling together and didn’t know each other before the flight. Also, the plaintiffs claim they were all seated separately — yet all removed from the plane. The lawsuit said, “In fact, it appeared to [the] plaintiffs that American [Airlines] had ordered all of the Black male passengers on Flight 832 off the plane.”
In the Washington Post’s coverage, the plaintiffs’ attorney, Michael Kirkpatrick, claimed the three men initially thought they were being bumped onto another flight. Then, when they saw seemingly all the other Black men on the plane at the gate, “It hit them like a ton of bricks.”
The outlet detailed that the lawsuit stated a white male flight attendant made the body order complaint.
Did The Plaintiffs Experience Discrimination From American Airlines?
After an hour, the Black men were reportedly allowed to reboard the flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport. The lawsuit described the toll the ordeal took on them. The filing stated, “Plaintiffs then had to reboard the plane and endure the stares of the largely white passengers who viewed them as the cause of the substantial delay. They suffered during the entire flight home, and the entire incident was traumatic, upsetting, scary, humiliating, and degrading.”
“Imagine a flight attendant ordering every white person off a plane because of a complaint about one white person. That would never happen. But that is what happened to us,” Jackson, Joseph, and Veal said, according to NPR. “There is no explanation other than the color of our skin… clearly, this was discrimination.”
The Washington Post reported that the lawsuit seeks “an unspecified amount of compensation and punitive damages.” The three men also allegedly want American Airlines to implement systematic changes that would prohibit a similar incident in the future.
The carrier claims to be internally analyzing what occurred. In a statement, American Airlines said, “Our teams are currently investigating the matter, as the claims do not reflect our core values or our purpose of caring for people.”