In Brown v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., (9th Cir., June 24, 2026), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that there is a genuine dispute of material fact that precludes dismissing before trial a suit by two Alaska Airlines flight attendants (Brown and Smith) who were fired after they posted comments on an internal intranet communications network opposing the Airline’s support for the proposed federal Equality Act. That proposed Act protected LGBTQ+ rights. At issue is whether the firings were because of the flight attendants’ religious beliefs or instead because their comments violated the company’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. The court said in part:
… [T]he issue is not whether Alaska can punish employees who engage in discrimination and harassment (it can). The issue here is instead a factual one of whether Brown was in fact fired for engaging in discrimination or harassment, or whether Alaska instead used the cover of its employee policies to fire Brown because of her religious beliefs. Construing the facts in the light most favorable to Brown, there is a genuine dispute of material fact on this point, and so summary judgment for Alaska was improper….
Under our cases, a union under Title VII “has an affirmative obligation to oppose employment discrimination against its members,” and if the union instead “acquiesce[s] or join[s] in the Company’s discrimination practices, it too is liable to the injured employees.”
The record raises factual questions about whether AFA’s representation of Brown was colored by potential disagreement with her religious views….
Judge Christen dissented in part, saying in part:
I dissent from my colleagues’ decision to reverse the district court’s entry of summary judgment on Lacey Smith’s claims against Alaska because I do not agree that Smith demonstrated a genuine dispute of material fact about whether Alaska terminated her because of her religion…
During Alaska’s investigation, Smith insisted that she was merely posing a philosophical question rather than asserting to the investigators that her Christian beliefs caused her to conclude that the Equality Act was immoral. The majority posits that “‘morality’ is often associated with religious beliefs,” but references to morality are not inherently religious….
First Liberty Institute issued a press release announcing the decision.