ATLANTA — A former Delta Air Lines employee is seeking damages in a discrimination lawsuit after claiming she lost her job over a social media post that showed imagery of former Present Trump wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood. Attorneys for Leondra Taylor, a Black woman, filed the suit last week.
The complaint said Taylor admitted to posting a cartoon image on Facebook that showed Trump and now President Joe Biden during a debate. The image depicted a Ku Klux Klan hood photoshopped over Trump's head with "the moderator saying to him, 'Thank you Mr. President, for wearing your mask,'" according to the suit.
The airline, the complaint claims, told Taylor it didn't tolerate hateful or discriminatory posts. However, her attorneys claim in the lawsuit the post - which Delta discovered in Jan. 2021 -- was a political statement and not hateful.
"In fact, her post was quite the opposite. It simultaneously made a statement about Trump’s denial of the need for COVID protective measures, and that racial discrimination against African Americans was a systemic issue starting at the top, with the then president," the suit states.
According to CNN, the image was created by editorial cartoonist Aislin and published by the Montreal Gazette in Oct. 2020 days after a presidential debate. During that debate the moderator, Chris Wallace, had asked Trump to denounce White supremacists groups; he responded with "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," a comment that led to a significant outcry.
Attorneys claim in the lawsuit against Delta that the company's actions subjected their client to "ongoing race discrimination."
"The effect of the conduct complained of herein has been to deprive Plaintiff of equal employment opportunity, and to otherwise adversely affect her status as an employee because of her race," the suit states.
The lawsuit alleges Taylor was notified she would be suspended in Feb. 2021. It also claims she tried to show that "Caucasian employees were not being investigated or, if investigated, were not being terminated," but was told by the general manager of IFS Field Operations Southeast Region that they were merely handling her suspension paperwork and they were not interested in gathering information from her.
11Alive reached out to a Delta spokesperson, who responded:
"When Delta employees intermix Delta's brand with conduct or content that does not reflect our values of professionalism, inclusion and respect, that conduct can result in discipline or termination. While personnel issues are considered private between Delta and its employees, the circumstances described by our former employee are not an accurate or complete explanation of the company's termination decision."