At the beginning of the year, Trump-aligned American First Legal complained to the Department of Labor that American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines were using employment quotes that are illegal as government contractors.
As a result of these complaints, Southwest Airlines now says that they will not discriminate in hiring and promotion. However, contra claims by America First Legal, they do not seem to be saying they were ever actually doing this in the first place.
/1 ✈️ BREAKING: Southwest Airlines to end illegal DEI employment practices
The U.S. Department of Labor has confirmed that Southwest will end race and sex-based discrimination in hiring and promotions following AFL’s federal civil rights complaint. pic.twitter.com/Lnm0LFqcq7
— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) December 3, 2024
None of the evidence submitted by America First Legal actually shows that American, United or Southwest engage in illegal quotas that would jeopardize their government contracts. All have ‘goals’ around diversity hiring, but for the most part the evidence only claims they measure themselves against those goals (which is legal) not that the unlawfully discriminate against anyone in order to achieve those goals.
The closest they appear to come to the claim is Southwest’s requirement incorporating diverse talent into their hiring process at the Vice President level. And the letter from the Department of Labor simply states that Southwest acknowledges what the law is, not that they were breaking the law, or that they’ll actually change their practices.
There is nothing illegal, or inappropriate, about:
- Seeking to identify talent in non-traditional places. That’s just a good Moneyball strategy. The market is pretty efficient for traditional pilot and MBA pipelines, paying candidates at the value of their marginal product for the most part. Companies win when they identify overlooked talent. And that’s especially important when talent is scarce.
- Using benchmarks as a tool to raise questions about the fairness of your process, or whether it is a helpful process to attract the best possible talent. You want to know if you’re unfriendly or unwelcoming, or if minor adjustments could make you an attractive place for talent you’re missing. Note, often unsaid in all of this, and a bit uncomfortable for DEI advocates is that this approach helps companies hire talent for less money.
Diverse Southwest Airlines Crew
To be sure, there may be informal enforcement of quotas at some airlines, in some departments, and for some roles. I am aware of an executive promoted to the vice president level at an airline where their primary qualification was viewed as their race (and in fact, this benefited the business interest of the airline). However, nothing presented in the record in these complaints obviously demonstrate illegal quotas that I can see.
To be sure, Southwest Airlines has been far too culturally liberal for some employees, especially more conservative pilots.
Still, they can’t be overly ESG (they’re a fossil fuel-burning airline!). They’re based in Texas, and co-founder Herb Kelleher was hard drinking (whiskey) and the carrier was once the state’s largest liquor distributor. It was the Love Airline, leaning into sex appeal.
Flight attendants wore hot pants and gogo boots as part of their uniforms designed by Juanice Muse (wife of founding airline President Lamar Muse). Their automated ticketing machines were called ‘Quickies’. Cocktails for passengers were ‘love potions.’
They even litigated their right to engage in sex discrimination – the landmark ‘Love Airlines case’ Wilson v. Southwest Airlines Co. (517 F. Supp. 292, N.D. Tex. 1981), contending that the sex of a flight attendant was a bona fide qualification for the job.
But this isn’t then, and the industry has changed. United Airlines, which as a matter of policy supports government affirmative action and explicitly decided to add a Black member to its board (and then did so)).
However when United announced a plan for 50% of the pilots at their training academy to be women and people of color, these were goals and they did not (actually) announce quotas.
Traditionally, discrimination rules have been enforced only when the actions harm members of a protected class. There’s an effort to apply them more broadly. The real takeaway from the discussion, I think, is that corporations used to be bogeymen of the left and in recent years have actually been at the vanguard of social change. There’s been a real crackup in traditional alliances, which makes so many predictions about how politicians will act and coalitions form difficult for many to predict.
Over the summer, by the way, America First Legal sued Expedia for refusing to hire a white male executive. There does seem though, broadly, to be a big cultural shift compared to the later years of the last decade.
(HT: @SenatorBulworth)
As a supposed hippie commie pinko libcuck, I find the whole ‘DEI’ thing to have been another propaganda astroturf from the start. Like with the ‘trans’ bathroom freakouts, a majority of so-called ‘leftists’ simply want bottom-up, as opposed to top-down, economic reforms. So, these ‘culture war’ issues are a distraction. And I get it, if life isn’t going well, it’s fun to punch someone else down. I wish we’d put our efforts towards something more productive and helpful for the majority of people. It’s a class war. Don’t let the oligarchs divide us. Likewise, we should expect a new set of marketing/buzzwords each cycle. I wonder what acronyms and pithy phrases come next.
Hire people based upon their merits. It’s not that hard of a concept. DEI destroys everything because rather than find qualified people hiring managers are trying to make quotas. I’ve had to work with incompetent, rude, entitled DEI hires. It isn’t fun.
As someone that flys 2-4 times a week there certainly is no shortage of women, “people of color” (whatever that means) and gays in the industry. And well before anyone knew what DEI was.
Gary, while you are correct that there’s no admission of wrongdoing in the wording of the OFCCP agreement which was published, but rather an affirmation that Southwest will obey the law going forward, you’re glossing over a key point and are presenting this as a “nothingburger”. The key point is that the OFCCP NECESSRILY found evidence of noncompliance in its investigation in order for things to have advanced this far procedurally. OFCCP does not have authority/discretion to take the action that it took here short of its required investigation of the complaint finding merit.
The OFCCP letter itself cites the below regulation in reference the procedural posture of this enforcement action. The “informal conference” which was held can only come about if the OFCCP investigation indicated a violation of the equal opportunity clause. If there was no evidence to support an alleged violation, the third party complaint would have been dismissed as being without merit and no “informal conference” would have occurred. As cited by the OFCCP’s letter, here’s the relevant law in pertinent part so it can be seen that I’m not blowing smoke, with special attention to subsection (c)(2):
41 CFR § 60-1.24 Processing of matters.
(a) Complaints. OFCCP may refer appropriate complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for processing under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, rather than processing under E.O. 11246 and the regulations in this chapter. Upon referring complaints to the EEOC, OFCCP shall promptly notify complainant(s) and the contractor of such referral.
(b) Complaint investigations. In conducting complaint investigations, OFCCP shall, as a minimum, conduct a thorough evaluation of the allegations of the complaint and shall be responsible for developing a complete case record. The case record should contain the name, address, and telephone number of each person interviewed, the interview statements, copies, transcripts, or summaries (where appropriate) of pertinent documents, a reference to at least one covered contract, and a narrative report of the investigation with references to exhibits and other evidence which relate to the alleged violations.
(c)
(1) [Reserved]
(2) If any complaint investigation or compliance review INDICATES VIOLATION OF THE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY CLAUSE, the matter should be resolved by informal means whenever possible. Such informal means may include the holding of a compliance conference. [emphasis added]
(3) Where any complaint investigation or compliance review indicates a violation of the equal opportunity clause and the matter has not been resolved by informal means, the Director shall proceed in accordance with § 60-1.26.
I guess what stymies me is that DEI is in direct conflict with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
How about that your roofer, tire shop mechanic, and lawn care person must be a white woman… your obstetrician, pediatrician, and topless dancer must be a man? How about the next Supreme Court justice must be a Black woman as was the case not too long ago?
Time to get your head out of the sand. Discriminatory hiring and promotion have been running amuck at the major airlines for years….albeit it under different monikers (i.e. affirmative action; DBE quotas etc.) . The most recent blatant manifestation of this ridiculousness is the announcement by Kirby that the next 50% of the 5,000 pilots they hire will be women or colored. Way past time to end this liberal sham before a whole lot of innocent people get killed in a crash operated by poorly qualified DEI hires.
You guys need to go easy on Gary… he suffers from SEVERE TDS. All you need is the first sentence and you know it’s just Gary being Gary… he can’t help himself.
Goals are quotas. They wouldn’t be there if the “goal” wasn’t to hire people of a certain background or trait. They fact that Southwest or any company is even tracking people based upon their backgrounds and traits means that some form of “soft” discrimination is ongoing. If they were hiring people solely based upon merit and ability, then there wouldn’t be a need for these goals.
For the record, the federal government has sued companies for failing to meet diversity goals before. The case of the lamp shade manufacturer in Chicago comes to mind. The government denied that they were enforcing a quota system, but then sued when the company failed to meet certain hiring goals. Yeah, looks like a quota system to me!
@Barolo, you said it. I agree and I’m a third party voter.
In the past, what now seems like a lifetime ago when Herb Kelleher was at the helm, Southwest Airlines hired based on how well you would fit the job you were seeking and your personality. At that time the formula to be hired was really successful and Herb Kelleher went on to build a truly successful Company. And you could find people of all races and colors working well together because of the Culture of Southwest Airlines. Fast forward to the DEI era combined with the COVID mess, and all of a sudden things got out of hand. DEI seemed to paralyze not only Southwest Airlines but many other Companies as well.
I fly on Southwest Airlines several times a year and probably will again this year. But let me tell you that things have changed and not for the better. Customer care has deteriorated to the point where I truly hesitate to approach an employee unless it is someone I know. That is very rare but not as rare as trying to find an employee who is willing to listen and try to help. And I thank DEI for killing the once famous Culture of Southwest Airlines.
‘The federal government has sued companies for failing to meet diversity goals before. The case of the lamp shade manufacturer in Chicago comes to mind’
That was in 1979 and was for practices followed from 1966 through 1978. I’m not a fan of DEI, but it’s notable that those claiming dire consequences
a) Refer to cases that are 35 years old
AND
b) Refer to events that took place from the late 60s through the 70s. Perhaps there was no discrimination at all in those days, so those cases were unjustified.
@derek
‘How about that your roofer, tire shop mechanic, and lawn care person must be a white woman… your obstetrician, pediatrician, and topless dancer must be a man?’
How about some more strawman arguments?
With the wave of companies ending “DEI” programs, it seems evident the federal government must have been coercing them either directly or via NGOs funded by the government. The SCOTUS ruling applies to more than just universities and they’re finally waking up.
@burger Kong. I compliment you on knowing what a straw man argument is. Sadly, you can’t recognize one.
Lots of trump bootlickers in these comments doing what they do best: claiming a win for not changing anything in a space that does not affect them
@Dave W, a strawman argument is arguing against a wild exaggeration of a policy.
Glad to enlighten you!
Woke is dead.
We won.
@burger kong. Sadly, I’ve learned nothing from you, except you like to label things as a “strawman argument” when you simply disagree. Nice try. Maybe you should have paid attention when you took that research methods class when you got your Ph.D.
It’s pretty simple what the airlines goals are. A quote from Kirby from a NYT article coincident with the 50% goal announcement in 2022-
““Most airlines are simply not going to be able to realize their capacity plans because there simply aren’t enough pilots, at least not for the next five-plus years.”
Not enough pilots, and not enough people available if you just stick to the 95% male, mainly white population. So you put out an announcement that you are hiring a diverse audience to widen the pool of applicants.
In the end, you can only hire those who have the resources and stamina to get through all the reguirements, so you hire what you can get. But the airlines that expands its applicant pool is more likely to be able to have the smallest shortfall of pilots. It’s as simple as that.