Lindsay Gottlieb, the women’s basketball coach at the University of California, Berkeley was preparing to board a Southwest flight on Tuesday at the airport in Denver, Colorado, to go to Oakland, California, with her infant son. That’s when she began to get scrutiny from an airline employee about her mixed-race son.
The boy is biracial. Gottlieb, the boy’s mom, is white; the boy’s dad is black.
Gottlieb, who is 40 and grew up in Scarsdale, New York, had a passport for her son, who is just a year old. The infant had traveled before with her on team trips. So it seemed odd to Gottlieb that she was being questioned now.
What was going on?
“I’m appalled that after approx 50 times flying with my 1-year-old son ticket counter personnel told me that I had to ‘prove’ that he was my son despite having his passport,” Gottlieb wrote on Twitter, reported KPIX 5. “She said we have a different last name. My guess is because he has a different skin color.”
The airport experience only became more bizarre for Gottlieb when she was asked to “prove” she was the child’s mother.
“She 1st asked for proof with a birth certificate,” the coach tweeted. “She then said it was a ‘federal law’ but asked me to prove I was the mother with a Facebook post. What?? The mother next to me said she’s never been asked for proof diff last name … not shockingly, not mixed race family.”
Gottlieb felt a need to speak up on behalf of her son.
“I do feel like as a white female, with a position of privilege, and a platform where someone is going to listen, it is my responsibility to say, ‘Hey, this happened, this isn’t OK,'” Gottlieb told KPIX 5. “And maybe somewhere down the line, that helps my son, who is biracial and will be for his entire life.”
Southwest apologized in a statement to KPIX 5 and said it would look into the matter.
“We’re looking into this specific interaction, and we have engaged with the customer directly to address her concerns,” the airline said. “Our employees are well-regarded for their hospitality, and we always strive for the best experience for anyone who entrusts us with their travel.”
The airline also said this in the statement: “Southwest Airlines’ policy is to verify lap children are younger than the age of two by reviewing a birth certificate or government-issued identification. Certain international locations require us to verify additional paperwork for those traveling with a minor. Domestic travel does not require carriers to match last names of a child and guardian.”
People deserve humane treatment no matter who they are or what their backgrounds may be.
As USA Today noted about the coach, “Gottlieb has guided the Golden Bears to six NCAA tournament appearances in seven seasons as their head coach, including a trip to the Final Four in 2013. She met her fiancé, Patrick Martin, who is black, in 2014, and their son turned 1 earlier this month.”
Bottom line here, especially in such a fraught period of time in America: People deserve humane treatment no matter who they are or what their backgrounds are.
While it’s tempting to chalk this up to just another case of airline nonsense, it is important to remember that those who work for the airlines are human beings — and are capable of kindness, too.
After all, if we prejudge airline employees (or police officers, or firefighters, or soldiers, or veterans, etc.) as being racist or ignorant, we’re only falling into the same trap of prejudice that a Southwest employee allegedly did.
Kyle Becker is a content writer and producer with LifeZette. Follow him on Twitter.
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