The Brotherhood of the Non-Traveling Pants

We grow weary of underwear scandals. First, Anthony Weiner, now DeShon Marman. Marman, a 20-year-old University of New Mexico student athlete, was arrested yesterday at San Francisco International Airport after refusing a request from a female US Airways flight attendant that he pull his pants up. Marman, whose baggy pants dangled gravity-defyingly from his buttocks, was then asked to leave the plane. He refused, police were called, and Marman was taken into custody.

Now, especially since 9/11, we've all been conditioned to obey the orders of airplane flight crews as if they were Stalinist diktats. Marman should, therefore, simply have complied with the flight attendant's not-particularly-onerous request. In fairness to the young man, he was returning to New Mexico after attending the funeral of a friend, so he was probably not in the best mental state to be approached with what might seem to be an arbitrary and petty request. More troubling than Marman's behavior, though, was the airline's justification.

We assumed baggy pants posed some sort of safety issue, potentially impeding Marman's ability to flee a burning airplane. Under those coditions, though, pants would be the least of one's worries, compared to 100 or so other passengers kicking and clawing to get out. Given Marman's athletic abilities (he plays football at UNM), his baggy pants simply level the wreckage-fleeing playing field.

But safety was not the issue. Marman was ejected for failure to comply with the US Airways dress code (!), which "forbids indecent exposure or inappropriate attire." Give credit to US Airways for shameless candor.

We can sympathize with people offended by the baggy pants look, but, really, the fashion has been with us for some 20 years now. It's hard to believe that Marman's exposure was somehow more "indecent" than that of any number of other US Airways passengers over the last two decades who were not asked to deplane. It is possible, of course, that US Airways has always asked everyone who wears baggy pants to pull them up or get off, but we doubt it. We suspect we would have heard a story like that before, and, indeed, that Mr. Marman himself would then be less likely to flout such a rule. We also cannot help but wonder whether race played a part in the flight attendant's request (we have no specific information about that). A private company may indeed have the "right to refuse service to anyone," but we would hope they are consistent in their reasoning.

In closing, we would like to send a message to DeShon Marman: Sir, we sympathize with your loss. Furthermore, we believe whole-heartedly in your right to free expression. We hope you will not be prosecuted for this minor infraction. Finally, though, we recommend that, in future, you pick your battles carefully and comply with reasonable requests from flight attendants and the like.

Besides, those baggy pants make you look like an idiot.

Solipsistography
"Baggy Pants Lead to Player's Arrest at SF Airport"