{"id":131347,"date":"2025-08-20T13:44:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T21:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/20\/eric-andre-racial-profiling-suit-against-clayton-county-revived\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T13:44:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T21:44:21","slug":"eric-andre-racial-profiling-suit-against-clayton-county-revived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/20\/eric-andre-racial-profiling-suit-against-clayton-county-revived\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Andr\u00e9 Racial Profiling Suit Against Clayton County Revived"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know that part where you get off a plane and a couple of officers immediately ask you which drugs you\u2019re trafficking? No? Eric Andr\u00e9 does, and has since felt a moral calling to do what he can to fight the \u201cconsensual encounter\u201d in an Atlanta airport that felt a lot more like racial profiling<\/a>. You can listen to his own account of the encounter below: <\/p>\n

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‘The experience was humiliating and dehumanizing’ \u2014 Comedians Eric Andr\u00e9 and Clayton English filed a lawsuit Tuesday, alleging they were racially profiled and illegally stopped by Clayton County police at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport pic.twitter.com\/f4vB9O3ZyK<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) October 15, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Thankfully, he\u2019s going to set a second chance at reducing the likelihood that Atlanta airport patrons aren\u2019t similarly harassed. NBC News has coverage:<\/p>\n

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A federal appeals court decided to reverse the dismissal of a lawsuit comedians Eric Andr\u00e9 and Clayton English filed in 2022<\/a> claiming their Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
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The district court dismissed their lawsuit in 2023, citing the plaintiffs\u2019 \u201cfailure to plausibly allege any constitutional violations,\u201d and all defendants, including Clayton County and the police department\u2019s chief, were protected by immunity. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its opinion that it found that Andr\u00e9 and English \u201cplausibly alleged that Clayton County subjected them to unreasonable searches and seizures\u201d and reversed the dismissal \u201cafter careful review.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While this isn\u2019t a complete victory \u2014 the court found that the individual officers were protected by qualified immunity \u2014 a successful suit against Clayton County could still get rid of the \u201cconsensual encounters\u201d that just happened to pull aside Black passengers 54% of the time despite Black passengers only making up 8% of the national flying public<\/a>. That said, kudos to whatever police PR person decided to call profiling flight departees \u201cconsensual encounters\u201d instead of \u201cflight stop and frisk\u201d or \u201charassing anyone who looks like they have money.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is hard to see the usefulness of the program considering that flyers have to go through TSA before they board the flight \u2014 any drugs or illegal items should have been caught in the screening process. Best of luck to Eric Andr\u00e9 and Clayton English. <\/p>\n

Eric Andr\u00e9 Lawsuit Over Drug Search At Atlanta Airport Revived By Appeals Court <\/a>[NBC News]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Eric Andr\u00e9 Takes A Break From Slapstick To Stop Atlanta PD From Being A Flight Risk<\/a><\/p>\n

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim,\u00a0is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at\u00a0cwilliams@abovethelaw.com <\/a>and by tweet at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Eric Andr\u00e9 Racial Profiling Suit Against Clayton County Revived<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Image via Getty)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You know that part where you get off a plane and a couple of officers immediately ask you which drugs you\u2019re trafficking? No? Eric Andr\u00e9 does, and has since felt a moral calling to do what he can to fight the \u201cconsensual encounter\u201d in an Atlanta airport that felt a lot more like racial profiling<\/a>. You can listen to his own account of the encounter below: <\/p>\n

Thankfully, he\u2019s going to set a second chance at reducing the likelihood that Atlanta airport patrons aren\u2019t similarly harassed. NBC News has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

A federal appeals court decided to reverse the dismissal of a lawsuit comedians Eric Andr\u00e9 and Clayton English filed in 2022<\/a> claiming their Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
\u2026
The district court dismissed their lawsuit in 2023, citing the plaintiffs\u2019 \u201cfailure to plausibly allege any constitutional violations,\u201d and all defendants, including Clayton County and the police department\u2019s chief, were protected by immunity. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its opinion that it found that Andr\u00e9 and English \u201cplausibly alleged that Clayton County subjected them to unreasonable searches and seizures\u201d and reversed the dismissal \u201cafter careful review.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While this isn\u2019t a complete victory \u2014 the court found that the individual officers were protected by qualified immunity \u2014 a successful suit against Clayton County could still get rid of the \u201cconsensual encounters\u201d that just happened to pull aside Black passengers 54% of the time despite Black passengers only making up 8% of the national flying public<\/a>. That said, kudos to whatever police PR person decided to call profiling flight departees \u201cconsensual encounters\u201d instead of \u201cflight stop and frisk\u201d or \u201charassing anyone who looks like they have money.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is hard to see the usefulness of the program considering that flyers have to go through TSA before they board the flight \u2014 any drugs or illegal items should have been caught in the screening process. Best of luck to Eric Andr\u00e9 and Clayton English. <\/p>\n

Eric Andr\u00e9 Lawsuit Over Drug Search At Atlanta Airport Revived By Appeals Court <\/a>[NBC News]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Eric Andr\u00e9 Takes A Break From Slapstick To Stop Atlanta PD From Being A Flight Risk<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim,\u00a0is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected] <\/a>and by tweet at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know that part where you get off a plane and a couple of officers immediately ask you which drugs you\u2019re trafficking? No? Eric Andr\u00e9 does, and has since felt a moral calling to do what he can to fight the \u201cconsensual encounter\u201d in an Atlanta airport that felt a lot more like racial profiling. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":131258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Chris-Williams-2025-6hMUeN.jpg?fit=512%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}