A pregnant woman was forcibly removed from a flight to Los Angeles last month, has revealed her side of the story.
Anila Daulatzai, a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art, claims she was subjected to discrimination "because she is a woman, a person of color, and a Muslim."
Southwest Airlines said Daulatzai was forced off the flight after she declared she has life-threatening allergies to dogs and demanded the two dogs on board be removed from the plane. While the professor denied these statements and asserted her allergies are not life-threatening.
Late in September, Daulatzai was filmed as she was being dragged off a Southwest Airlines flight to Los Angeles at the Baltimore-Washington airport.
She was two months pregnant with her first child at the time.
In viral video footage documenting the incident, Daulatzai can be seen resisting at least three officers who were dragging her across the plane.
She can be heard yelling, "What are you doing," "My dad has surgery," and "You've ripped my pants off."
This came after she declared her alleged life-threatening allergies.
According to the airline, Daulatzai claimed she suffers from "life-threatening pet allergy" but did not give any documents to prove her statement, which gave them the authority to forcibly remove her from the aircraft.
Daulatzai was then detained and "charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and other misdemeanor offence," according to The Independent.
Earlier this week, Daulatzai's lawyers contested the airline's recollection of the incident.
In the statement, they said:
"Professor Daulatzai was profiled, abused, interrogated, detained, and subjected to false reporting and the trauma of racist, vitriolic public shaming precisely because she is a woman, a person of color, and a Muslim."
According to her lawyers, Daulatzai did not claim her allergies were life-threatening, nor did she request the dogs be removed, as well as she was not asked for medical certification.
"She discussed her non-life threatening allergies to dogs with Southwest representatives upon entering the aircraft, and together they decided that she could manage by sitting away from the dogs towards the rear of the plane."
She was then approached by Southwest representatives and reportedly answered all their inquiries.
Despite her efforts to convince them she would be "completely fine" on the plane and that she had to fly to California to take care of her hospitalized father, she was asked to leave the craft and was was "violently removed."
Daulatzai's lawyers went on to say that she "suffered physical injuries and mental trauma, required emergency care at a local hospital, including for her pregnancy, and is under continuing medical care."