Woman Required to Cover Up on American Airlines Flight Says Race Was a Factor

“Based on our engagement with the company, they have begun to make progress,” Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive of the N.A.A.C.P., said Tuesday of the airline’s past efforts.

Mr. Johnson said the N.A.A.C.P. wanted to get all the facts about what happened to Dr. Rowe.

“We are going to monitor to see the airline’s response,” Mr. Johnson said.

Dr. Rowe said she was walking to her seat when a male flight attendant, whom she described as black, asked her to return to the front of the plane. Another flight attendant, who was also black, then spoke to her about her appearance while she stood on the jet bridge, Dr. Rowe said.

“She poses the question to me, ‘Do you have a jacket?’” Dr. Rowe said. “I said, ‘No, I do not.’ I’ve been given no explanation as to why I was taken off the plane. So finally she says, ‘You’re not boarding the plane dressed like that.’ Then they started to give me a lecture about how when I got on the plane, I better not make a scene or be loud.”

The airline’s conditions of carriage, which are posted on its website, make a brief reference to a dress code: “Dress appropriately; bare feet or offensive clothing aren’t allowed.”

Dr. Rowe said her son was in tears when they reached their seats and used one of the blankets given to her to cover his head. Since her first social media posts about the episode, Dr. Rowe said she had received photos from many other women of more-revealing outfits they had worn on flights.

“We are policed for being black,” Dr. Rowe posted on Facebook during the flight. “I’ve seen white women with much shorter shorts board a plane without a blink of an eye. I guess if it’s a ‘nice ass’ vs. a Serena Booty it’s O.K.”