HR business partner sided with manager at every juncture, complaint alleges
A former United Airlines project manager says the airline turned on him the day after it celebrated his Arab Palestinian heritage in an internal article - and that HR backed his manager every step of the way until he was fired.
Mohanad Alhams filed suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on May 25, 2026, accusing United of discrimination and retaliation under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the federal law protecting the right to make and enforce employment contracts free from racial bias.
Alhams worked at United for more than five years, starting as an engineer in January 2019 and moving to a project manager role in March 2022. The complaint says he had no formal discipline during that time. Then, on April 11, 2024, during Arab American Heritage Month, United published an article on its employee platform, Flying Together, featuring him and his background. The next day, April 12, his new manager Tara Lu escalated her first complaint against him - over a months-old, never-realized plan to visit a station in Venice, Italy, raised in a casual conversation at a bowling alley before she was even his boss.
From that point on, Alhams alleges, the goalposts moved. He says he was singled out for typos his colleagues also made, flagged for starting project check-ins 116 days out when the team standard was 90, and disciplined for missing a meeting while on approved vacation, while a colleague who skipped a similar meeting faced nothing. Travel plans needed his manager's sign-off six weeks in advance; peers, he says, changed theirs without notice.
The complaint also describes comments Alhams attributes to Lu. After he waved hello to a Palestinian colleague in an elevator, Alhams says Lu pressed him on whether he knew her and her daughters, and he received an email the following morning telling him he was not meeting expectations. On another occasion, when he suggested Lu visit Morocco for a station opening, the filing states she said she would not take her family to "a place like Morocco" because it was not safe.
The HR story is the heart of the case. Alhams says he raised concerns with HR Business Partner Bridget O'Brien on September 4, 2024, then again on October 21, focusing on cultural insensitivity and interference with his role in Unite, United's business resource group for Arab and Middle Eastern employees. A follow-up was set for October 24.
Thirty minutes before that follow-up, according to the complaint, Lu and HR pulled him into a different meeting and handed him a Performance Improvement Plan - his first formal discipline in more than five years.
The fallout came fast. On December 2, 2024, Alhams says he was offered, and accepted in writing, a Program Manager Cargo Regulatory Risk role on a different team. He alleges Lu and HR then intervened, the offer was rescinded, and he was terminated effective January 31, 2025, with the PIP cited as justification. Colleagues, the complaint says, were surprised by the firing and did not think his performance warranted it.
He is seeking back pay, front pay, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney's fees, and an injunction requiring United to put in place measures to prevent retaliation against employees who complain.
The allegations have not been tested in court. United has not yet filed a response, and no court has ruled.
