For years, Southwest Airlines has run a special program to assist Hispanic college students living far from home. It’s called “¡Lánzate!” or “Take off!” and it gave a select number of students free flights to visit their families as they pursued their studies—or the chance for their parents to visit them in turn.
Isabella, one of this year’s recipients, whose last name was withheld in publicity materials, said in a statement that the program would allow her to see family sooner than expected, adding, “I’m so excited to see my little cousins (and how much they’ve grown), my grandparents (hopefully I can convince my grandma to make mole), and of course my mom (in-person this time).”
But Isabella’s class of ¡Lánzate! winners will be the last. In May, the program was targeted by conservative activist Edward Blum and his American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), which claimed that Southwest discriminated against two of its non-Hispanic members, thereby violating two civil rights laws.
In an attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed, Southwest terminated the program and offered Blum’s group one cent, the amount of damages the group claimed. But a federal judge has decided that those actions won’t be enough. The case against Southwest Airlines will go forward, said U.S District Judge Sidney Fitzwater, in an opinion last week.
That has the potential to create obstacles for other companies facing anti-DEI lawsuits that try to have the cases thrown out by canceling or changing the terms of their DEI programs. And attorneys say it could mean a strategy shift when it comes to the ongoing legal battle over DEI.
“It reflects a new playbook by one of the key players fighting DEI programs in the courts,” Lauren Hartz, an attorney at Jenner & Block and co-chair of its DEI Protection Task Force, told Fortune in an email.
Southwest Airlines declined to comment. The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, which had also been a partner in the program, did not immediately respond to Fortune.
Blum told Fortune in a statement that the Alliance is “grateful that our case against Southwest Airlines’ racially discriminatory program will proceed.” The group issued a separate statement to the press in response to the judge’s ruling, saying that the decision is “a powerful tool to prevent case-mooting tactics from discriminators nationwide.”
A new playbook
The Southwest lawsuit is the latest in a wave of similar legal challenges brought against U.S. companies by the AAER.
Students For Fair Admission, a separate conservative group created by Blum, was behind the push that saw the U.S. Supreme Court overturn affirmative action in college admissions in 2023. In a high-profile example of his activism in the private sector, Blum’s AAER challenged a venture capital firm in Atlanta, the Fearless Fund, for running an annual program that aimed to support startups run by Black women. In that case, the two parties came to an agreement that saw Fearless Fund shutting down the program in question, and the case was dismissed.
Now companies that fear legal challenges from Blum or another activist over DEI efforts may not have the same option to have a case dropped by dismantling the programs at the heart of the dispute, Hartz explains. “After the court’s decision, it’s less clear if that off-ramp is available to companies,” she said, “and it’s more important that they be proactive.”
The AAER relied on legal technicalities to make the case, representing a departure, she also said. “When AAER started bringing lawsuits, it was focused on making changes to targeted DEI programs at specific organizations. And when those organizations agreed to modify their programs, AAER was generally satisfied to claim victory and move on,” she said. “This lawsuit signals a new and more aggressive approach. AAER isn’t just working to target and change particular programs; it wants to change the law itself.”
The crux of AAER’s complaint against Southwest Airlines, filed in a federal court in Dallas, is that the program harmed two of its members by excluding non-Hispanic students, violating a Civil Rights Act of 1866, which bars any racial discrimination in contracts, and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial and other forms of discrimination in programs or businesses that received federal funding. ¡Lánzate! winners signed contracts with the airline to participate, and Southwest accepts federal funds, leaving it open to such claims.
The organization states that on a FAQ webpage about ¡Lánzate!, the airline’s answer to the question, “Is this program only for Hispanic students?” was “Yes.” To be eligible, a student “must identify direct or parental ties to a specific country to determine Hispanic origin.” The Alliance claimed in the suit that two college students, one white and one Asian, identified only as A and B, wrote essays to apply for the free flight program but could not submit their applications because they could not agree to the stated terms around eligibility. Those two students then joined the Alliance, according to the court document.
“Members A and B find Southwest’s discrimination against them deflating, disheartening, offensive, and hurtful,” the Alliance claimed in the complaint.
Southwest’s website links to a current description of ¡Lánzate! that says it is open to students from all ethnicities. The company made that change after the AAER launched its suit, according to court documents.
Over 20 years, some 1,500 students have benefitted from the competition, which awarded honorees with four free flights.
