By Soo Youn
Publication: Washington Post
On Friday, Jenny Grondahl flew from Phoenix to San Diego, carrying a souvenir: a cardboard sign she wanted to frame when she got home to Southern California. It read “Arizonenses Con Biden” with a cactus and was made by an artist named Javier Torres.
It marked an accomplishment for the labor organizer — outreach to Latinos in Arizona to vote for Joe Biden for president in 2020. Grondahl serves on the executive board of Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), representing workers in California and Arizona. She also volunteered for the Biden campaign, and a friend had given her the sign for the hours she worked.
“I worked very hard to register Latino voters. … And Latinos showed up, Arizona went blue,” she said, explaining why it meant so much to her.
When she got to the gate, Grondahl said, a Southwest Airlines employee told her, “Many customers are offended by your sign.” The agent asked her to either cover it with white paper and tape or to fold it to put underneath her seat.
Then Grondahl asked what would have happened if she had been wearing a T-shirt supporting Biden and Vice President Harris. The agent told her that she would have had to turn it inside out to board the flight.
Recent incident over attire highlights the ambiguity in airline dress codes
Instead of covering up the sign, Grondahl folded it and placed it under her seat.
Last Friday I was told by Southwest Air staff “many” passengers complained and were offended by the @joebiden sign I was carrying under my arm. I was told to cover it up or not bring it aboard. I asked what if I was wearing a @potus tee told I’d be asked to turn it inside out. pic.twitter.com/Mvm0mdz7u1— Jenny Grøndahl (@JennyGrondahl) August 2, 2021
As Americans return to the skies during the pandemic, they are facing unruliness among fellow passengers. Flight attendants are getting the worst of it as passengers become violent and refuse mask mandates.
FAA asks airports for help with unruly passengers, calls for avoiding ‘to-go’ alcohol sales
But fliers may also be reminded of other disruptions: the arbitrary power over passenger dress code and what they can bring onboard. Airlines have long been able to enforce this, but in this political climate, it could include signage and other memorabilia.
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Later that year, graduate student Arijit Guha was taken off a Delta flight in Buffalo because his T-shirt said, “Terrists gonna kill us all.” He said the misspelled shirt was satirical and mocked federal screening policies that he said racially profiled. The pilot countered that it scared fellow passengers.
Again, there is little passengers can do because rules can be interpreted unevenly.
“[Contracts of carriage] are written in broad language that makes these determinations particularly subjective, so that one person’s behavior or clothing on one flight may not be considered offensive on another,” travel lawyer Adam Anolik said.
That turned out to be true for Grondahl, who flew from Orange County in California back to Phoenix just four days later on Southwest. She didn’t have the sign, but she wore a “LIUNA! For Biden/Harris” mask on her flight without incident.
These guidelines are often justified for safety reasons, Anolik said. “Airlines can claim offensive attire or behavior can cause conflicts on board so that the airlines need to police problems before they escalate.”
Flight attendants and crews have dealt with a spike in disruptive passenger behavior recently. Since January, the Federal Aviation Administration has received 3,715 reports of unruly passengers. The FAA has started 628 investigations and moved forward with 99 cases with penalties. There have been incidents involving flight attendants being punched, losing teeth and having to restrain passengers with duct tape.
The problem with leaving such interpretations on dress code or carry-on items up to individual airline employees is that they are “susceptible to inherent biases of employees, which may be, in this situation, politically motivated. Airlines should not be policing political speech,” Anolik said.
Several days later, Grondahl’s sign was in her office waiting to be framed, despite the folds.
“It will have a crease in it to remind me of Southwest Airlines approaching me to say people were offended by it,” Grondahl said, laughing.
Hannah Sampson contributed to this report.