Discrimination Over Soda [VIDEO]

A Muslim chaplain is claiming she was discriminated against on her United Airlines flight from Chicago to Washington Friday (May 29th) when a flight attendant refused to give her an unopened can of Diet Coke. Tahera Ahmad, who's Northwestern University's director of interfaith engagement and wears a headscarf, wrote in a Facebook post that went viral and led supporters to create a #unitedfortahera hashtag that when she was given an opened can of Diet Coke she asked for an unopened one for "hygienic reasons" but was refused by the flight attendant. The man sitting next to her was then given an unopened can of beer, and when Ahmad saw that and again asked why she couldn't have an unopened can, the flight attendant said, "We are unauthorized to give unopened cans to people because they may use it as a weapon on the plane," and then quickly grabbed and opened the man's can of beer when Ahmad said she was being discriminated against. Ahmad wrote that when she asked other passengers if they'd seen what happened, a man sitting across the aisle yelled, "You Muslim, you need to shut the f*** up." And when she said, "What?" he told her, "Yes, you know you would use it as a weapon. So shut the f*** up."

A United spokesman said there'd been a misunderstanding and they'd spoken to Ahmad Saturday to try to better understand what happened and apologize for, quote, "not delivering the service our customers expect when traveling with us." Ahmad has said that the flight attendant and the pilot later apologized, and that she's not trying to get the flight attendant fired, but in another Facebook post wrote that she was disappointed in United's response, which she said, quote, "disregarded and trivialized" what she experienced. She wrote, "I have not received a written sincere apology for the pain and hurt I experienced as a result of the discrimination and hateful words towards me. This is not about a can of soda."

Do you think Ahmad was discriminated against because she's Muslim, or do you think she's reading more into the incident with the flight attendant than there was? And beyond the can issue, should the flight attendant have said something to the rude passenger who shouted the ugly comments at Ahmed?