A Black retired judge from Chicago has filed a complaint against American Airlines for racial discrimination – and it's just one of the times the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline has faced such allegations in recent years.
Pamela Hill-Veal is a retired judge who was appointed to serve as a member of the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission (A.R.D.C.) Review Board earlier this year, according to the Illinois State Bar Association . Per her complaint obtained by NPR, Hill-Veal experienced her American Airlines discrimination incident on a Feb. 10 flight from Chicago, Ill., to Phoenix, Ariz.
It said that Hill-Veal and her family were flying first class. She had gotten out of her seat to use the first-class bathroom.
“The flight attendant stopped me as I was returning to my seat and told me I ‘slammed the restroom door and I was not to do it again since passengers were sleeping on the plane,’” Hill-Veal explained in an interview with NPR. She added that she didn’t slam the door, so she didn’t respond.
Then, it happened again, said the complaint. This time, the same flight attendant (his race and identity are not revealed in the complaint) began to berate her.
“He began to berate me by pointing his finger at me towards my face and saying, ‘I told you not to slam the door... so from now on, you are to use the restroom in the back of the plane’ while he pointed in the direction of the restroom in coach,” Hill-Veal said, according to NPR .
She said she didn’t witness any other first-class customers complain about the door and that the interaction drew attention to her.
Hill-Veal said she believes the incident was racially motivated, noting that other passengers, who were white, used the same first-class restroom and were not told to use the one in the back of the plane.
Around 30 minutes before the aircraft landed in Arizona, she used the restroom for a third time.
“Once she was leaving, the same flight attendant followed her to her seat and began to physically touch her and explain that she would be arrested upon the flight landing,” said NPR’s report. In the complaint, it said the flight attendant’s alleged reasoning for the arrest was that he “didn’t like the way [she] talked to him.”
He also accused Hill-Veal of hitting him. She denies that allegation.
“This was a complete fabrication as I told him that I never hit him,” Hill-Veal said.
Last January, the Dallas Morning News reported on a number of incidents linked to racial discrimination on American Airlines flights.
“Fort Worth-based American Airlines is facing accusations of racial discrimination after removing two Black celebrities from flights during the last week and is being sued in federal court by a Black passenger for also being kicked off a flight,” said the outlet.
Those who accused the airline include hopeful Olympian Sha’Carri Richardson and New York rapper Talib Kweli, who said he was threatened with arrest and removed from an American Airlines flight . These followed a NAACP travel advisory to Black passengers to avoid flying the airline from 2017 after a series of complaints about interactions between the carrier and Black individuals, said the Dallas Morning News.
“The NAACP dropped the travel advisory in 2018 and American Airlines has instituted implicit bias training and reviewed its complaint system to try to address racial discrimination,” said the outlet. American Airlines chief diversity officer Cedric Rockamore said complaints of this nature have decreased in recent years and that every company employee is required to undergo bias and discrimination training.
“A lot of these things are born out of that balance where we’re trying ensure that we’re in compliance with all of the FAA rules and regulations, but at the same time create this experience where it doesn’t give the impression that there’s some perception that there’s unfairness or discriminatory practices on board the aircraft,” Rockamore said.
Another incident occurred last year, according to CBS News . Per that outlet, David Ryan Harris – a musician who has collaborated with the likes of John Mayer, Carlos Santana and the Dave Matthews Band – was greeted by police after getting off an American Airlines flight because they believed his children were not his.
“Apparently, a flight attendant had called ahead with some sort of concern that perhaps my mixed children weren't my children,” Harris said in a video posted on his social media accounts cited by CBS. “We are met, embarrassingly so, by this AA employee and police officers. They questioned my kids.”
He said in an Instagram post that the airline eventually apologized after some time. While he said he accepted an apology from the flight attendant and was happy the airline reached out, he also said: “I still, very much think that non response from the airline smacks of corporate arrogance at worse and a gross undervaluing of customers at best. That I had to resort to shaming the airlines to get a response at all speaks to a general lack of a meaningful customer service apparatus.”
Hill-Veal said she hasn’t been able to properly sleep since her incident and that it has left her feeling traumatized and humiliated.
“I’m still uncomfortable about flying because I don’t know what they’re going to say that I did... in an attempt to cover up for what they did during this particular time,” she said.
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