Trump’s Civil Rights Chief Is Suing Uber For $125 Million—Then Shames “Seemingly Male” Driver For Not Lifting Her Bag

The Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights believes that Uber drivers should help with bags on airport runs. She says hers was a “modest carry-on” and believes it matters that the driver at least presented themselves as male. And boy do I have questions, not least of which is her expectation of a “colorable excuse” from an Uber driver who failed to lift her suitcase. Your able-bodied (seemingly) male ride-share driver to the airport doesn’t lift a finger to help put your modest carry-on luggage into the trunk on either end of the trip, nor offers/explains any colorable excuse. How does this affect your tip, if at all? — Harmeet K. Dhillon (@HarmeetKDhillon) August 23, 2026 Was this UberX or Uber Black? There’s very little difference these days other than vehicle type. Uber was once only Uber Black, professional drivers picking up extra trips during downtime between scheduled rides. It’s supposed to be a profesional driver, with longer wait times. Honestly the real value at this point is at LAX where they can pick up at the terminal rather than shunting you off to the LAXit lot which is better to walk to but involves an miserable shuttle ride. Officially it offers luggage assistance, while UberX does not as a service standard. Does the fact that the bag was a “modest one” mean it’s more reasonable to expect the driver to handle it, or more reasonable to expect the passenger to do so unassisted? She clearly believes the former, but it also means that the assistance matters less. Does the driver’s gender change the expectation? And isn’t it weird for the chief civil rights enforcer of the federal government to be stereotyping “Your able-bodied (seemingly) male” and inferring physical capacity from appearance and gender? And when the Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights publicly calls out a company over their service, is there an implied threat? Is it their position that’s lodging the complaint, or is this coming just from the customer? Does it matter that they tweeted from their personal account, which identifies their official government account rather than from the account representing their government position itself? Meanwhile the tipping discussion here is an interesting one because Uber’s implementation of tipping actually was a way to pay drivers less. It simply shifted the burden of pay more directly on the customer. Uber reduced driver pay precisely because customers would top off the amount the driver got directly. Tipping was a cost-saving tool for Uber, not something that increased income to drivers. In fact, it’s even more than this because psychologically drivers overestimate the value of tips they’ll receive. They’re more motivated by the possibility of tips than higher trip fees, accelerating the way that the platform can reduce its driver costs – as Uber’s founder explains: Delivery app tipping isn’t about feedback mechanisms.. it’s a tool for maximizing price paid by consumers… eaters are economically irrational with tip, for every $1 in tip, they economically behave as if it were $0.80 (directionally true but hypothetical figure) … this means… — travis kalanick (@travisk) November 19, 2025 It seems to me that the official overseeing the Justice Department’s pending $125 million civil-rights lawsuit against Uber shouldn’t be posting service complaints about them shortly after personally participating in mediation with the company. Publicly shaming a litigation opponent over an unrelated service complaint, and having the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights stereotyping the driver by sex, is problematic and gives the appearance of personal animus (and therefore lack of impartiality in the case) and government intimidation. Topics on this page