Mom Sues After Southwest Accused Her of Trafficking Black Daughter

A white mother has accused Southwest Airlines of racial profiling after a flight attendant called the police on her over suspicions that she was trafficking her Black daughter, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Colorado. In 2021, Mary MacCarthy and her then 10-year-old were on an emergency flight to Denver for MacCarthy’s brother’s funeral when a Southwest employee flagged her, the suit states. Upon arrival, two cops were reportedly waiting for the pair for questioning. While police eventually let the mother and daughter go, the suit claims Southwest is responsible for inflicting “extreme emotional distress” and singling them out “for no reason other than the different color of her daughter’s skin from her own.” “To this day, when Moira and I are out in public—and especially at airports or on planes—I’m hyper aware that we might be judged and reported for any interaction we have with each other,” McCarthy told Newsweek. Her suit seeks economic and compensatory damages in addition to punitive and exemplary damages. Southwest said it would conduct an internal review at the time that the incident occurred.