An African-American pilot flying for United Airlines out of San Francisco International Airport claims in a lawsuit that the airline treated him unequally, retaliated against him and demoted him because of his race.
United demoted pilot Clarence Williams from managing its most-sophisticated group of planes to being an ordinary pilot for reasons that included his serving as a witness in another black pilot’s racial-discrimination case and his statement to the company’s human resources department about derogatory comments made about a female colleague, the suit alleged.
“United demoted Captain Williams because of Captain Williams’ race and because Captain Williams would not cover up for his superiors when they made discriminatory and retaliatory remarks about other pilots,” the suit claimed. “All relevant decision makers at United who chose to demote Captain Williams … were white.”
The airline said in an emailed statement that it has no tolerance for discrimination of any kind. “We have looked into the allegations, and believe we did not discriminate against Mr. Williams and will defend ourselves in this case,” United said.
The alleged violations of Clarence Williams’ civil rights occurred despite his more than 20 years of experience as a commercial airline pilot, “excellent job performance” as an airman and manager, and his selection as the face of promotions, including a video used to celebrate Black History Month, the suit claimed.
“Captain Williams watched as … white Fleet Technical Managers had less imposing deadlines, were required to do substantially less work, and were allowed leave for family emergencies such as the death of a parent or the cancer operations of their spouses — yet United did not afford these same benefits to Captain Williams,” the suit alleged.
Williams’ supervisor repeatedly embarrassed him in front of colleagues, interrupted his presentations, made condescending comments in emails, and loudly declared at meetings that he would sit next to Williams in case Williams disagreed with him and he needed to “slap him around,” according to the suit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
While Williams’ supervisor granted a white pilot 11 days off to drop his daughter at college, he reprimanded Williams for taking vacation time to mourn his grandfather’s death, and then, after Williams’ father died, pressured Williams to work the next day, the suit claimed. The supervisor told Williams not to go with his wife on a medical visit related to her cancer, telling Williams he wouldn’t be able to do anything for her and that he was “needed in Denver,” although the supervisor had attended all his own wife’s medical appointments and cancer treatments, the suit alleged.
Williams claimed in the suit that United retaliated against him over multiple issues, including his statement to HR about his supervisor suggesting that policies and procedures had to be “dumb simple” to be understood by a female United pilot who complained to the airline that she was subjected to gender discrimination.
Also, shortly after 18 African-American pilots for United held a news conference with civil rights leaders in 2016 about the pilots’ racial-discrimination suit against the airline, Williams participated in a teleconference meeting with fellow managers, according to the suit. Toward the end of that meeting, the managing director of flight standards made reference to the 18 pilots’ legal action, Williams’ suit alleged. When the director began to speak, Williams set his phone to record, according to his suit.
He captured the man saying that any United employees deposed in the 18 pilots’ case “should say ‘I don’t know’ even if they did know the answers to the questions,” Williams’ suit claimed. The director allegedly said, “We need to put a stop to it forevermore. If this is ever brought to you, if you are ever questioned, you know nothing about it: ‘We practice diversity in flight standards, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.'”
The following year, Williams provided the recording to another black pilot suing United over alleged racial discrimination, and was a key witness in the other pilot’s case, the suit claimed. Williams was demoted less than two weeks later, according to his suit. His superior and United removed him from his job as fleet technical manager for the airline’s Boeing 787s — the most technologically advanced planes in United’s fleet — and put him into a job as a pilot of Boeing 757s and 767s, the suit alleged.
Williams is seeking unspecified punitive damages and damages related to pay.
