Muslim Woman Denied Can Of Coke On Flight

Muslim Woman Denied Can Of Coke On Flight

After a Muslim woman accused the crew of a United Airlines flight of discrimination, the company has apologized for what it called a “misunderstanding.”

Via ABC:

The passenger said a United attendant on the flight from Chicago to Washington on Friday refused to give her an unopened can of coke, allegedly telling her it could be used “as a weapon.”

“The flight attendant brought over an open can of diet soda, so I requested, for hygienic reasons, a closed can of diet soda,” Tahera Ahmad, a chaplain at Northwestern University, told ABC’s Chicago station WLS on Sunday. “And so she said, ‘Well, no one has consumed from this can.’ And I said, ‘That’s fine but I would really prefer for hygienic reasons and health concerns.’ … She said, ‘Well, it is against our policy to give people unopened canned beverages.'”

“And then she said, ‘No diet coke for you,’ and she picked up the beverage from my tray table and took it back,” she said.

Ahmad said the same flight attendant then served an unopened can of beer to another passenger.

When she confronted the attendant, “She said it is against our policy to give people unopened can beverages because they may use it as a weapon.”

“So I said, ‘Well I think that’s strange because you’re discriminating against me because clearly you gave the passenger next to me an unopened beverage can.’ And so she looked at that, picked it up, opened it and put it back. And as she was putting it back she said, ‘It’s because you would use it as a weapon.'”

“At that point I was in utter shock,” she told WLS. “I was almost tearing up.”

Ahmad said she then asked the other passengers, “Did you all just witness this discrimination?” and she claims another passenger muttered “you Muslim” and told her to shut up.

“And he said, ‘You know you would use it as a weapon,'” Ahmad recounted.

“I just couldn’t believe what he had said,” Ahmad said. “I was in tears.”

The attendant apologized after the flight, Ahmad said, but she told the attendant that her actions made her feel “very threatened.”

Do you think this Muslim woman has a discrimination lawsuit on her hands?