Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a senior a UC Berkley, was taken off of a Southwest Airlines flight simply for speaking in Arabic to a family member. A passenger on the plane reported him for making what she thought were "potentially threatening comments". He was really calling his uncle to share his excitement about a lecture he had just attended!

Here is the NYT article with details of the event: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/student-speak...

This type of blatantly bigoted and ignorant response to a foreign language is sad, although more and more typical in the general public. But it is something that we should never tolerate from a highly successful airline company!

We call on Southwest airlines to issue an official apology to Mr. Makhzoomi and to provide cultural sensitivity training to all of its flight teams so that no one is humiliatingly taken off of a plane, searched in public and interrogated by the FBI simply for speaking their native language.