A Dallas-based legal advocacy group sent a letter to American Airlines (AA) on Tuesday demanding that the company retract hiring and other policies explicitly based on race within 30 days.
The letter appears to be addressed to the directors and officers of AA and informs them that their knowledge, established by the letter, of the illegality of these policies would likely void the indemnity clauses enjoyed by such agents of the organization when faced with legal challenges.
The American Civil Rights Project (ACR Project) reportedly wrote the letter on behalf of AA shareholders, to include the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), according to Dan Morenoff, the executive director of the ACR Project.
The letter states that if within 30 days of receipt, no response is received, “the Stockholders will be forced to seek judicial relief to protect American and the Stockholders’ interests in the company from your continued breaches of your fiduciary duties.”
This may set up a high-profile legal dispute, as the airline has admitted that it weighs race as a factor in hiring and in contracting, according to materials reviewed. In a shareholder meeting last June, the NCPPR reported that AA CEO Doug Parker said the airline “absolutely” weighs “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in its hiring process for pilots.
“One of our focal points is to confront companies, especially iconic companies such as American Airlines, that violate the law,” Morenoff said. “AA policies inject race into the company’s internal and external contracting.”
Morenoff said those policies violate state laws and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He said the company rewarded members of its leadership team based on progress toward racial goals in hiring to “ensure the diversity of [its] team reflects the diversity of [its] customers.”
“None of this is legal,” Morenoff told The Dallas Express. “American Airlines is American Airlines and should know better than putting its name at risk with stockholders and potential employees.”
In 2021, AA’s annual hiring quotas included increased requirements for one racial demographic already overrepresented in the company’s workforce relative to the total population, the ACR Project said in a news release.
In 2022, the Fortune 500 company deemed progress toward racial quotas a factor in the calculation of executive compensation packages, according to the ACR Project.
Scott Shepard, director of the Free Enterprise Project at NCPPR, said hiring and promoting on merit is a hallmark of publicly traded companies.
“Hiring pilots and other aviation personnel on any other basis is not just illegal and a breach of duty to shareholders and the flying public; it is quite frankly insane,” Shepard said in the news release.
“AA must not only end these programs immediately but put transparent policies and procedures in place to make sure that merit is the only metric it uses in any employment-related decision or process,” he added in the statement.
Further, according to the letter, AA also committed to race-based contracting in violation of settled contract law. The press release describes American’s commitment to reshaping its supply chain through a Supplier Diversity Program “that qualifies vendors based on the race, sex, and gender of their ownership.”
The Dallas Express reached out for comment from American Airlines. The company did not respond by the publication deadline.
The company’s official website contains a page about pilot credentials. The description falls under the headline, “It’s Not Just What We Do, It’s Who We Are,” and explains the company’s need for “safe, professional, skilled” pilots.
“Our pilots are not only leaders on the aircraft — they are also leaders in our operation,” the page states. “That requires a special type of person, someone who can anticipate a need, develop a plan and draw all the necessary players together to make it happen.
“Whether you’re ready to be hired now or just figuring out where you want to land, look to American.”
AA’s stock price was $16 a share at the close of business Tuesday. The company was valued at $55.5 billion in December 2021.
The ACR Project has a history of confronting companies that operate with similar policies. The group previously wrote letters to Coca-Cola and Lowe’s and helped reverse hiring practices based on race and sex, Morenoff said.
“I hope American Airlines will read our letter and reverse its policies,” Morenoff told The Dallas Express. “I expect a lawyer will write us back, saying they will look into it, then stall.”
yep i want a pilot hired because of his skin color not his qualifications as a pilot. makes perfect sense. wasn’t this in the news last week? underqualified pilot hired for diversity crashed a plane killing hundreds? Call Mayor Pete he’s got all the answers….
I wonder how did those 2 planes that crashed into each other a few months ago, killing everyone on board at the Dallas redbird airport air show HAPPEN?, the pilots were all WHITE..i.e..no color, all were OVERQUALIFIED..all had decades of flying experience,AND IT STILL HAPPENED…the reason had to be the color of their skin,not WHITE PILOT ERROR….NOOOOOOOOOO.
IMO I think it was intentional by the smaller plane…suicide. Never really got an answer as to what happened but it is feasible.
There has been a follow up on this. It was not found to have anything to do with a suicide mission.
Ironic that you mention qualifications as not a reason for the crash since it most likely will be determined that the airboss was not qualified for the job.
You need to watch the movie “The Tuskegee Airmen”. That will tell you all you need to know about Black pilots. No one gets a commerical pilot’s license that is not quailified to have one. However some pilots get the job because they look like all the pilots that have had the job before them.
The Tuskegee pilots were based in Italy because Truman didn’t want the white soldiers to know they were black.
The Italian people put wood floors in their tents and wooden stove’s so they would be warm. The movie never revealed the true story. Hitler knew where they were based and knew they were black and the White American soldiers never knew they were black. On the front line and still disrespectful!
As long as Americans want to pretend we are under the rule of law, want “equity” and demand to make every occupation “reflect society,” law must be applied evenly – or no reason at all exists to sustain the contract between the people and the government that is the Constitution. The freedom of the rule of law will mean splitting apart in whatever way makes the most sense in order to reverse the anti-law totalitarianism accelerating so quickly across the West today.
Here is the current American demographic.
· White: 46%
· Hispanic: 19%
· Black: 17%
· Asian: 14%
· Other: 4%
If we are intent on equity, etc., all government agencies, all pro sports teams, all corporations must look like this. Because the only way to achieve this result is to treat racial cohorts differently from one another with hiring quotas – a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment – we can’t do both and so will sacrifice equality (as we have been doing since Affirmative Action began) or abrogate the Constitution.
Three generations of government-sponsored racism have not worked. Blacks are arguably worse off today than ever before in their history in the Americas, unquestionable worse off than at any time since 1865 and, as many are beginning to note, slavery was a better answer for the Black family than welfare and Affirmative Action.
Affirmative Action, with an assist from viral videos of airports, fast food restaurants, classrooms, etc., has proved true the Black stereotype: Lazy, shiftless, uneducable, sexually aggressive, violent. One can say that only some fit the stereotype – but even if that is true, they are unwilling to police themselves within the confines of Western Civilization, unwilling to take advantage of every possible avenue of self-improvement, and unable to abide by our culture. When Christianity, punctuality, merit, mathematics became racist – those things that built the civilization in which they live (and are free to leave at any time) – any fantasy that they desire to participate in America vanishes; their only goal is to grab ever-larger entitlements of stuff they refuse to earn. They have no place in a merit-based society – and either they, or merit (and productivity, progress, peace) must go.
This summer will be interesting if SCOTUS has the balls to toss AA, and you probably don’t want to be in Memphis, Chicago, New Orleans, DC, Baltimore, St Louis, Los Angeles…. when that happens. If AA is tossed, and said tossing enforced, a whole lotta blacks will be unemployed, and a whole lotta whites employed, AWFLs will whine and scream, Blacks and Antifa will burn down the cities this summer, and the Democrats will win in 2024 (tossing AA will be to blacks and AWFLs what Dobbs was to AWFLs) and NO rational argument will exist not to secede.
By then it only will be logistics.
According to the 2020 Census, it’s:
White 57.8%
Hispanic 18.7%
Black 12.1%
Asian 5.9%
2 or more races 4.1%
Other 1.4%
June 19, 1867 in Texas, not 1865! Blacks are not worse off in Texas, we were Sharecroppers and bought the land and a lot of us still have it because we were taught to always pay our taxes. Don’t know where you are from but you no very little about Black Texans who know their value.
Pathetic form of virtue signilaing that will no doubt end in tragedy at some point. But that will be revealed that the pilot was one of their EQUITY hires and was really not qualified but was good enough. That part of a crash invedtigation will be covered up if not by the company, then by the media.
The stupidity of this policy is beyond belief. Will I fly AA? Nope.
Guess you will never fly! United Airlines went through this same silliness in the 90’s and they currently have hundreds of pilots who cannot fly commercial aircraft so they have been placed into other jobs to maintain the quotas. As a matter of fact Scott Kirby vowed to hire 50% Female and minority pilots beginning next year! No mention of qualifications other than their race or sex. Ponder that stupidity for a bit!
Why beg or go to Court. Just go to another airline, at sometime you have to stop begging. Boycott AA!
WOW! Sorry, I want a pilot that is qualified. This position should not result in the color of your skin.
Well, I guess in the case of equity and inclusion, American should have segregated flights for equity pilots!!! Every passenger should sign a flight manifest with acknowledgement that their equity demands are 1st and foremost and they or their family will not hold American responsible for any liability that will arise from ignorant negligence!
For long flights they should provide ‘Oprah’ re-runs for their viewing pleasure!
Known fact: American Airlines has more blacks and Hindi employees at their HQ than any other race. I for one am glad to see somebody finally realizes that race over qualifications just doesn’t work. The joke now is it is being called African American Airlines.
So don’t hire the best of the best. Go with mediocre or flat out unqualified. This mindset is a true danger to society. But the dems have been blatantly showing, with every move they make, that they do not care about Americans and want to destroy this country. They should be arrested for treason, and bring back the firing squad.
Who says the ones they have hired in the past were “the best of the best”. I submit if they WERE hiring the “best of the best” all along, they wouldn’t have ignored a group that was qualified, but didn’t get the job because it was given to their golfing buddy, their neighbor’s friend or relative, etc. Remember, for some jobs it is not WHAT you know, but WHO you know. Don’t know if that was the case here, but I don’t think “Affirmative Action” was intended to achieve a BIGGER percentage than what was represented by the population statistics. If the minority group is12% and the company is trying to give “equal” OPPORTUNITY to this group, and they see there is less than that, maybe that was their objective. NOT to have MORE of one group than another. Obviously, if the pool is made of more of one group, then by default there will be more of that group. It is up to AA, as with any company, to decide who is “qualified” or not. Only hurting themselves to do otherwise.
Pap, you are wrong, my father my uncles the Two’s, Germany and Japan. My husband, his brother and my brother-in-law, husband 82nd, my brother-law Air Force Viet Nam, my other brother-in-law
Korean Conflict. My nephews and nieces Iraq. The only one who didn’t survive was my 25 year old nephew who was in the Iraq Surge.
When you go to war you are in a firing Squad. Try jumping out of a place in Viet Nam. That is a firing Squad, my 30 year old grandson is in a firing squad, he is a Dallas policeman. I pray every day, morning and night that he makes it home to his family. God bless you because my family has honored and protected this country and two are still surviving in the military one is married and has children.
that is the way of the democrats and rinos everyone else first and america last someting wrong with this picture . texas is two steps to turning blue texas has a house full of rinos that get voted in and then select a rino for speaker that appoints democrats to chair the committees that was to be chaired by conservatives. and to top it all off there was a choice other than dade.
What does being a democrat have to do with this? Please explain
I think much of this stems from 9-11. I’m African American and not at all racist, but because of 9-11, I am fearful and do not trust pilots flying planes who are of Muslim Indian decent.
Know you value Mr. Dubb, do you think that man care. My nephew joined the Military during 9-11.
On May 19 2005 he took a bullet through the throat , he saved 20 soldiers whom he called his brothers. They were fighting for their lives. He knew why God put him in that place(Iraq). That’s why I don’t whine about what Bernard did. A hero who died at 25. If they don’t like you, so what,who give a poop!