JetBlue Passenger Forced To Cover Arabic Shirt Gets $240k From JetBlue, TSA Employees
In 2006, Raed Jaer, an Iraqi-born U.S. resident, was forced by TSA officials and JetBlue to cover his t-shirt—it read, "We Will Not Be Silent" in both Arabic and English—before he could board a flight. The airline and the two TSA officials (TSA was not named in the suit) settled out of court last week for $240,000, although JetBlue still denies they did anything wrong, and the TSA says they don't "condone profiling in any way shape or form."
Here's what happened back in August 2006:
After passing through security... [TSA and JetBlue officials] came up to him and asked him to change his shirt as, "people are feeling offended."
Jaer replied, "Why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn't it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?" Inspector Harris said, "people here in the US don't understand these things about constitutional rights."
He added, "You can't wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads "I am a robber" and going to a bank."
When the settlement was announced, JetBlue took pains to make it clear that they're only settling to avoid a protracted legal battle, and that they don't think they did anything wrong, according to this email to the Washington Post:
"JetBlue continues to deny, outright, every critical aspect of Mr. Jarrar's version of events," airline spokeswoman Alison Croyle said in an e-mailed statement. Croyle added, "JetBlue believes diversity adds great strength to our company; diversity among our crewmembers as well as our customers."
Diversity, and silence! And obedience! Lower your heads, cattle passengers of all colors, and submit to the skittish herd!
Anyway, we're happy for Jaer. We're also trying to come up with a good pseudo-terroristy tshirt design so we can try this ourselves.
"JetBlue, TSA Workers Settle in T-Shirt Case" [Washington Post]
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"JetBlue Makes Passenger Change 'Offensive' Arabic Tshirt"
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Comments:
Damn, I could use a quarter mil... where can I get me one of those shirts?
That's just wrong. People need to stop taking what the mass media spoon feeds them, because those are just companies using sensationalized shock stories to make a buck. Not all Muslims are terrorists, just like not all Christians are gay-haters who protest a soldiers funerals. A few widely reported extremists give the whole a bad name.
@tc4b:
Not ones that make others uncomfortable. Whatever happened to exercising a little common sense?
@tbax929: Well it seems that anyone who is brown makes many ignorant Americans uncomfortable. Should they all be prohibited from traveling too?
Or perhaps it would be more effective to ban the ignorant Americans? They seem to the be the ones causing the most problems!
amen freedom of speach roxors
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Brown people (such as me) shouldn't be allowed to fly.
This is an example of "just because you have a right to do something doesn't mean it's right to do it." He did this two days after the exposure of the Al-Quaeda plot to blow up airliners over the North Atlantic. His sole intent was to incite the reaction he did.
The real irony is that the ACLU's argument in the case was that Homeland Security should have known he was not a real threat because he has lived in the US since 2005 and is married to an American woman. In other words, if they'd just profiled him, this never would have happened.
Good work!
Now a t-shirt... let's see... I think that a t-shirt bearing the First Amendment in arabic would be very good.
tbax929, from the details presented here -- which obviously may not be a perfect synopsis, but it's what we've got -- why wouldn't you conclude "Sounds like the airline and TSA representatives were looking for trouble"? The only appropriate response to the complainants was "It's just a shirt."
@tbax929: So if I see some guy in a "Why Beer Is Better Than Women" t-shirt, can I send the TSA to crawl up his ass and die? I mean, that shirt makes me uncomfortable.
@tbax929: It's not the TSA's job to make people comfortable. It's their job to keep them safe. In this case, they were wasting their time with the former instead of focusing on the latter.
@ExGC: First, if that's how you think the world should work, JetBlue and TSA should make it clear when purchasing a ticket that customers wearing shirts with Arabic text will not be permitted to board. There's nothing about his shirt that should have denied him service, especially by TSA - Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech - aka, TSA has no right to tell this man whether or not he is legally expressing himself.
Second, if his sole intent was to incite the reaction, who's fault is that? If you are offended by a shirt, you need to get over yourself. If you're racist enough to think that just because his shirt has Arabic print on it that he's going to blow up a plane, you have no business functioning in society. Anyone offended by that shirt offends me and like you are implying of Mr. Jaer, I would like them removed from my sight.
@ExGC: So anytime al-Qaeda is thwarted, there is a waiting period before people can wear T-shirts with Arabic on them? What is the exact waiting period?
There's nothing wrong with profiling people based on how long they've lived in this country and what ties they have here. Far different than OMFG A ARAB!!!!1!
@tbax929: "Not ones that make others uncomfortable." Rosa Parks should have thought of that, and given up her seat.
Barbara Fritchie should have thought of that, and put away her flag.
Martin Luther King, Jr. should have thought of that, and given up his dreams.
"You shouldn't wear a shirt with Arabic on it to an airport."
??? WTF ???
If it was in Hindu? Hebrew? Sanskrit? I seriously doubt most Americans can tell the difference.
If the man looked Asian and was wearing a shirt that had Asian looking characters on it no one would have said a thing. Why? Americans don't hate Asians right now. They don't automatically associate all persons/things with an Asian background with terrorism.
Lets face it. Americans are as bigoted as they've always been. Hating Islam/Muslims/Persons of *SUSPECTED* Middle Eastern Origin/Specific shades of brown is *in* right now just like it use to be acceptable to hate blacks and Jews.
Kudos for this guy! I hope he enjoys every penny!
Amazing that this gets him 240k and I get run over by a bus and get $0 (negative 200k if you count the medical bills and the broken window that broke when I got run over).
Oh good grief! I think the whole thing is ridiculous and I agree with those that said this guy was egging it on.
You have a right to fly.
You have a right to wear whatever you want.
You dont have a right to fly, wearing whatever you want.
Isnt it far better to err on the side of caution? What if he really did mean trouble? How is security supposed to distinguish?
If you dont want to undergo the inconvenience of being stopped, use your head and dress a little bit better. I'll bet he chose that shirt out of a whole closet-full. When he put it on, he knew what he was doing.
TSA should have just ignored the shirt. Instead they gave this douchebag an undeserved victory.
And A-Fucking-Men from me to that, too.
My (utterly non-Arabic, Native American/Irish-Canadian, in fact) husband has a shirt that looks just like that one (it translates as "I am not a terrorist", I think), and he loves it. "Makes people uncomfortable", my arse.
Just to add some legal nuance to this, could someone cite the statue (I'm being serious here, not snarky) that says a business such as an airline can't bar any passenger/customer it so chooses? There are federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on race in housing, based on disabilities in hiring, etc. But what specifically prohibits JetBlue from barring any passenger it wants to?
I'm just wondering if there's a parallel to the traditional public space v. private space difference in speech law, such as how someone peaceably protesting on the National Mall could do so without fear of arrest but the same wouldn't go for the same person conducting the very same protest on the main quad of a private university.
In other words, as stupid as it was, within reason if it's JetBlue's plane, can't they do what they want to?
Want, too. Send me a private message when you have the design worked out.
It would be so sweet if you could do the design as Arabic calligraphy. Arabic is heartbreakingly beautiful when a really good calligrapher lays it out.
@speedwell: This was for Gawd Dammit and ShirtNinja... not sure why it did not go under that thread.
And neither did Raed Jaer's shirt. It's not a crime to be Middle Eastern, feel strongly about something and want to express it on a shirt. It's a crime to hurt others, which he most definitely was NOT doing.
@Squeezer99: The t-shirt wearing also didn't result in 3000 innocent people dying so I don't know what you're getting at.
I don't think it can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was trying to incite anything. Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't. As long as he was acting appropriately, wasn't talking smack to the TSA agents, they had NO right to ask him to change his shirt. If he had gone through security with a t shirt that read "Fuck You You Fucking Fucks" such as the one my brother bought for me, erroneously thinking it was even remotely humorous, they probably wouldn't have said a word to him, even though THAT t shirt would be somewhat inflammatory and provocative, if not down right in your face and aggressive.
we've gone SOOO far in the wrong direction here, what with an endless, godawful expensive war both in $$ and lives, here at home with the bullshit TSA nazi fvckheads, none of this has made a DENT on the overall problem.
There are ways to prevent planes from being turned into weapons of mass destruction, EFFECTIVE ways. There are ways to screen every single item/person/hair that goes onto public transport for bomb materials without making us feel like criminals/jailbirds, and quite frankly, I'd rather take some risk and have a funner time traveling then to put up with this bullshit any longer.
I've boycotted flying for several yrs now, and I wish more people would do this. If enough people stopped flying in protest, the airlines/airports/TSA/government would HAVE to do something to make the system better.
It's my silent protest, I know you don't give a shit, that's fine, I don't have to sit next to you and listen to your mindless drivel or smell your foul breath, cow.
@Ted's Famous Kickin Chicken: there's nothing stopping JetBlue from preventing him, but the fact that the TSA, a government agency, stopped him, makes all the difference.
Uh, this guy and his shirt didn't kill 3000 people either. Nice try, thanks for playing!
Well I just can't decide how I feel.
Did he do this knowing he'd be asked to take it off, and then he could sue ('tis the American way after all) Or is JetBlue wrong is asking him to take it off? Would they have asked non-Muslims to change outfits?
I wanna know if overweight bitches wearing tank tops and stretch pants can be kicked off planes too. They definitely offend and scare me
Just as an FYI, how is "WE WILL NOT BE SILENT" equated with offending. I wear a shirt that says SILENCE=DEATH.
@JamieSueAustin: Just to clarify, "Hindu" refers to a person who follows the religion of Hinduism. "Hindi" is one of the official languages of India and is spoken by hundreds of millions of people.
@morganlh85:Or perhaps it would be more effective to ban the ignorant Americans?
C'mon now, those are the only people keeping AirTran and Spirit in business.
The best part about this is the fact is comes so close on the heels of that family being kicked off, simply for discussing where the safest place on the plane to sit was.
Oh, and the fact they were brown. Lets not forget how scary brown people are. Don't ever let any brown people on my plane.
Sometimes I hate having to constantly feel ashamed that I'm a white American. Can we all work on that and stop slipping more and more below that acceptable stupidity line? We're all stupid, it's human nature, but how is it that us white Americans seem to be in a race towards the bottom of the gene pool lately?
Since when does a settlement not include a silence clause? If he's allowed to discuss this to the press, me thinks Jetblue wasted a lot of cash
@Phillip M. Vector: You never renewed your website. I kept visiting, but it never changed. Also, didn't the window break when it was hit by someones hand/arm, IIR the video correctly?
I was asked by SouthWest to change my Tshirt back in '05. They said it would offend other passengers. Granted my shirt said Midwest Fuckers on a Maltese cross. I granted them that as I did see children in line for the plane.
I don't believe they can refuse just any passenger. After all they are common carriage.
It would have been a god idea to have named the TSA for the big headlines though. Only the TSA would have been a valid target for first amendment violations. Only the government can violate your first amendment rights. JetBlue was just the deep pockets to get the payday.
Awesome... i wonder what they're going to do about the tattoo's in arabic down my forearms that say "i am not afraid, i was born to do this..."
Maybe i won't be the right shade of brown for them to harass...
It sounds to me like he was looking for trouble. Even if he has a right to wear the T-shirt, why would you wear that T-shirt to an airport?