Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> JURIST - The Paper Chase

Legal News

: JURIST - The Paper Chase

TSA officials and JetBlue Airways settle discrimination suit for $240,000

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Monday announced that two Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials and JetBlue Airways have paid a $240,000 settlement to a man who claims he was discriminated against on a flight. Raed Jarrar alleged that he was illegally discriminated against based on his ethnicity and the Arabic writing on his T-shirt, which read "We shall not be silent" in both Arabic and English. TSA and JetBlue Airways agreed to the settlement late last month. In August 2006, Jarrar was forced both to cover his T-shirt and then to change his seat from near the front of the plane to the rear. Neither the TSA nor JetBlue felt that Jarrar posed a security risk. The ACLU and Jarrar filed suit in 2007. The complaint alleged that one TSA official told Jarrar that "it is impermissible to wear an Arabic shirt to an airport and equated it to a "person wearing a t-shirt at a bank stating, 'I am a robber.'"

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on January 06, 2009 (boomark / email).