Judge orders Southwest lawyers to attend 'religious liberty training'

Three lawyers for Southwest Airlines must attend a "religious liberty training" course after a judge ruled the company disregarded his order in a religious discrimination case.

The judge sided with a flight attendant in May who said she had been fired for expressing her opposition to abortion.

On Tuesday, the judge said the airline "didn't come close" to complying with the ruling at the time.

Southwest said it would appeal the latest order.

The company's lawyers have been told to attend a course run by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian legal-advocacy group.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has said the ADF is an "anti-LGBTQ hate group".

The airline appealed the original judgement when the flight attendant, Charlene Carter, was awarded $5.1m (£3.99m) and also got her job back.

She claimed she was fired after she called the trade union president "despicable" for attending the 2017 Women's March in Washington DC.

Southwest and the union said Ms Carter wrote offensive posts on Facebook and harassed the union president in direct messages.

A jury in Dallas, Texas ultimately found that the airline had violated her right to religious free speech.

Southwest was then ordered to tell employees that it "may not discriminate against... flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs, including - but not limited to - those expressed on social media and those concerning abortion".

In his highly critical 29-page order, Judge Starr said the airline "didn't come close to complying" with this.

He ordered a new, verbatim, statement to be sent to employees, and in his ruling included the Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions of "may," "does" and "tolerate".

The judge, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said the company behaved as if its policy limiting what staff can say was more important than federal free speech law.

It was also ordered to pay the flight attendant's legal costs.