What happens when an incident involving a Hooters waitress, a revealing skirt and a plane ride to Arizona for a mysterious doctor’s appointment comes to the public’s attention? The answer is one very famous 23-year-old.

Mesa student Kyla Ebbert sprung from anonymity early in September when she was asked by a flight attendant to leave a Southwest Airlines flight until she changed into something more appropriate.

Ebbert told “Today Show” co-host Matt Lauer that the flight attendant told her that because it was a family airline, she was “dressed too provocatively to fly on this flight.”

They eventually struck a compromise that allowed Ebbert back on the plane: she pulled up her top and adjusted her skirt so it reached further down her legs. Ebbert claimed to be humiliated by the whole ordeal because the passengers nearest to them heard the interaction and she had to walk back to her seat with all eyes on her. She said she cried all the way to Arizona.

So, who is Ebbert really? Everyone seems to have an opinion. Is she the immodest girl who only wants to draw attention to herself, or the innocent student who just dresses “like every other college girl in San Diego,” according to her mom?

The Mesa Press tried to go directly to the source for that answer. Unfortunately Ebbert was too busy appearing on television shows like “Dr. Phil”, “Ellen” and “The Today Show” to respond to this publication’s phone calls.

After Ebbert ducked out of interviews, the only place to turn to was the internet; her name offers approximately 98,000 hits on Google alone. The internet is causing her story to spread across the globe. Many Web sites allow viewers to publicly post their opinions. For example, as of Sept. 20, msnbc.com had 377 pages of comments about Ebbert from 3,011 authors.

All the conflict surrounding Ebbert has only blurred the main issue: Was her outfit reason enough to get kicked off an airplane? The ruckus of people running to defend the “victim of big business” has all but drowned out the possibility that this may in fact have been the case.

The passengers aboard the flight could have seen something that people hearing the story secondhand have no idea of. It is perfectly plausible that her outfit was more provocative before she adjusted it for photos and television appearances, causing passengers to complain to the flight attendants. In “Contract of Carriage” Article 10, the airline reserves the right to refuse transport to someone “whose clothing is lewd, obscene or patently offensive.”

The media is twisting this situation in Ebbert’s favor. When she appeared on “The Today Show” wearing the infamous outfit, her underwear showed as she sat down. The scene was edited out on the West Coast, according to signonsandiego.com.

Because the clarity of the situation will not improve, the only things left to analyze are the implications this has for future airline travelers. If Ebbert gets the apology that she is looking for from Southwest, it is a very real possibility that the airline will establish a dress code to keep this situation from repeating itself. This would completely eliminate the freedom that Ebbert’s supporters are so adamant about- the freedom to dress as one chooses.

Some people defend Ebbert because the airline has no dress code. Yet there is an undeniable, unwritten code that governs what is appropriate to wear in public. Whether or not Ebbert was dressed inappropriately is beyond determining at this point, yet either way, the end result may be more restrictions for everyone.