Hmm, so she was allowed to board the aircraft and made it almost to her destination when someone finally mentioned that the shirt offended them.
I'm sorry, but...WTF? Of course Southwest has a policy on things like this and they are well within the law to bar someone from getting on the aircraft. But to let a passenger on, allow her transit most of the way, then ask her to leave because someone else said something? That seems, just as Hangtime said, far too PC for even this country.
When you look at it from the position of the airline, they were forced to act. Most of the time, flight crews don't care about what a passenger does in the cabin as long as it does not harm or offend other passengers. "Offend" is such a general term, because there are some really thin skinned people out there that are offended by anything and everything. While we are given the right to free speech, we're not allowed to do so if what we say offends someone else. In a sense, free speech no longer exists because something offends everyone nowadays.
This case brings about a situation of "mind your own damn business." You see a shirt that offends you while you're flying to LA? Grab a magazine and don't look at it. You ain't forced to see it unless you're looking at the woman all the time. In that case, perhaps they should throw YOU off for sexual harrassment, hmm? You're going to whine to the airline and inconvinience someone else because you didn't like what they were wearing? Fashion police, anyone? She covered it halfway into the flight but the sweater slipped and it was visible again...
"Excuse me, stewardess? That lady over there is wearing a shirt that really offends me and if you don't eject her from this plane this very instant I'm going to call my lawyer and we're going to have some words with your boss and the rest of this airline for allowing such blatent and disgusting profanity to cross my line of sight!"
Yeah, ok...whatever works.
While Southwest does have a policy against language, if she was allowed to board the aircraft then there should no longer be anything they can do about it. Yes, I know that's not how it works but if you ain't going to be observant enough to see the shirt as she boards then why the hell would you take the time to ask her to leave somewhere over Middle America?
Backpeddling, anyone?