GLENDALE, Ariz. — An Arizona Cardinals season ticket holder, who has purchased tickets to games for 34 years, is expressing her frustration with being forced to throw her Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat in the trash before their first regular season game on Sunday.
Susan Rosener and her husband were making their way through the security checkpoints when she heard a female security member shout, "You can't bring that in here." She was referring to her black MAGA hat.
VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL: Una abonada de los Arizona Cardinals se vio obligada a tirar a la basura su gorra MAGA antes de entrar al estadio
Rosener asked the security member, who works for a third-party company, why she couldn't wear the hat to the game, she was told it violated the stadium's policies on prohibited items.
“She's like, 'no political hats or shirts.' And I said, I haven't heard that at all. And I said, that doesn't make sense to me. And she goes, 'I said, Take your hat off,'" Rosener recalled.
Her husband then posed a question to the security person, "If she takes it off, can we get in?”
They were told the hat had to be discarded in a nearby trash can, or else they couldn't enter State Farm Stadium.
"In retrospect, I wish I would have stood my ground a little bit, but I wasn't sure what the repercussions would be, and my husband would kill me if I did something with the season tickets or that jeopardizes them somehow," she said.
The Arizona Cardinals and State Farm Stadium have a list of prohibited items when entering the stadium. The closest line items to a ban on political attire would clothing deemed "obscene or indecent in a public setting" or "any item deemed inappropriate or hazardous by stadium security."
But as it turns out, political attire is not prohibited at AZ Cardinals games. The team issued a statement saying a member of their security team misinterpreted their policies on prohibited items.
TEAM STATEMENT: In an isolated incident at Sunday's game, a stadium security member misunderstood a policy on prohibited items. Like most venues, "signage, posters, flags, or displays that are….political in nature" are not permitted. However, that did not apply in this instance. Moving forward we will work to provide clarity to all stadium personnel in these situations. We have also reached out to the individual involved to communicate that their experience was not consistent with our policies and practices and to apologize for that.
Rosener says it shouldn't matter which political affiliation her hat represents. She says her freedom of speech should not have been limited at a public sporting event.
“I am super freedom of speech. I could care less if someone had a Kamala Harris hat or T-shirt on," Rosener said. "I do feel like part of the problem was this security woman definitely had a bias with my hat.”
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