Ashley Kauffman, 19, says she was kicked out of the front row of American Idol recently. Two staffers approached her and one said “Oh no, you’re too big, too heavy to be in front!” Kauffman, a college student, and 5 of her girlfriends had received free tickets to the live show from friends who found themselves unable to attend.

Kauffman, excited about her unexpected good fortune, went out shopping to buy a brand-new outfit. “I didn’t think I looked too bad,” she told the Daily Mail UK. Rather than the front-row seats they were ticketed to have, Ashley and two of her friends were moved to the back of the theater.

She weighs around 150 and stands at 5’2”, and while it’s not likely she’ll walk a runway in Milan, Kauffman is by no means obese. She admitted to being hurt by the treatment she received at the show; she’s speaking out because she wants an apology from Idol, and she wants to prevent other women from suffering the same fate.

According to statistics compiled by the Wall Street Journal, 34% of all Americans over the age of 20 were obese in 2008. Of children aged 2 through 19, 17% were obese in the same year. What is obesity? Medline Plus shows us that a person is medically obese if their BMI (body mass index) is greater than 30. Normal BMI is 18.4 to 24.9. Everything between 24.9 and 30 is classified as “overweight.”

But, that’s not the point, is it? It doesn’t matter how many obese and overweight people there are in the United States, what matters is that Ashley Kauffman had tickets to sit in the front row. And she was discriminated against, and made to sit at the back of the theater because of the way she looks.