Whatever It Is, She's Against It

By Robert Wilonsky Fri., Apr. 7 2006 at 9:21 AM

Categories: News

Is there anything Adelfa Callejo won't protest? Of course, we ask with love; she's a powerful and sincere attorney-activist-advocate whose life story is so compelling that in 1999 a Stanford law student made her the subject of this comprehensive paper that serves as a pretty inspirational tale.

But you know your protest plate is full when you're so busy shouting down one thing you don't have time to get to the other thing you're against: According to this story--which I find unexplicably amusing, perhaps because it's about the formation of yet another group that wants to keep the Wright Amendment in place--Callejo can't get her Wright's-right effort off the ground because she's too busy getting ready for this weekend's immigration-rights march. Callejo's effort, by the way, will be called Committee To Protect Our Children, which, she tells the Dallas Business Journal, she decided to start after she testified before the U.S. Senate about the Wright Amendment. Then, and now, Callejo said Southwest Airlines' demand that the Wright Amendment be repealed will be harmful the neigborhoods surrounding Love Field, many of which are Hispanic. As she said in a press release issued last November by Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport's Public Affairs Department:

"Today's hearing made it clear that the Wright Amendment still works--and allowed Southwest Airlines to grow into the largest and most profitable domestic air carrier in the U.S. So what does Southwest do in return? It discriminates against its own neighbors around Love Field and the larger population of North Texas. The airline does not tell the truth about its motives then tries to blackmail the City of Dallas by threatening to move its headquarters. We should demand more honesty and integrity from Southwest."

Callejo says she hopes to have her new Web site launched as soon as she gets some free time. --Robert Wilonsky

Email to Friend