WHEN is an Arab not an Arab? Well, it seems that according to American, Continental, Northwest and United Airlines in the US, when their passengers and pilots say so. Furthermore, why is it possible to discriminate against individuals who simply look like Arabs and get away with it?
It soon may not be possible if five pending lawsuits against US airlines are successful. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed lawsuits on behalf of five men who were "ejected from flights for reasons wholly unrelated to security." The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is a co-plaintiff in three of the cases. Four of the passengers are US citizens, one is a permanent legal resident. Only two of the five are of Arab descent.
The linking factors in the cases are these: all are of Middle Eastern or Asian appearance and all were removed from flights "because the flight crews or passengers said that they had felt uncomfortable" with them aboard. All had passed the security checks to be on board. Moreover, all the men were immediately offered seats on subsequent flights without a repeat of the rigorous security checks that they had already undergone.
ADC President Dr. Ziad J. Asali said, "We are as committed to the security of the United States as any other American. However, these ejections had nothing to do with security. They were simply discriminated against because of their perceived ethnicity. As the Department of Transportation has pointed out, this is not only immoral, it is illegal."
This litigation is not a knee-jerk reaction to an isolated clutch of incidents. Since October 2001, the ADC has received over 60 reports involving over 100 Arab-Americans, or those perceived to be Arab-Americans, being expelled from aircraft during the boarding process. Repeated requests to the airlines and the Department of Transportation have yielded nothing but blandishments. The lawsuits will, hopes the ADC, cause the courts to order the airlines and staff to stop discriminating on the grounds of ethnicity or physical appearance.
If the cases fail, do we then unleash discrimination against Japanese-looking citizens in case they have come to sink naval battleships, the British in case they want New England back or even Native Americans on the grounds that they may wish to occupy their ancestral lands?
It could only happen in America. Couldn’t it?
