<p>Send your kids to Columbia University, where if you do not pass the mandatory swim test, you won’t get your Bachelor’s degree. Even the noted alumnus who wrote all those ‘cat novels’ didn’t have his degree because of the swim test requirement.</p>
<p>I seriously can’t believe how many posters are trying to rationalize the decision of the swim club to exclude the black kids.</p>
<p>There simply never was an overcrowding or safety issue on the day of the event. According to testimony by club members the pool was approved for up to 100 kids. On the day of the event there were far less than the maximum authorized, 46 black kids and maybe 10 or so white kids until they all left the pool. The club had 4 lifeguards on duty that day plus a significant number of day camp supervisors. According to several club members interviewed by the press, the club pool is much more crowded on an average weekend that at 3:30PM on Monday when the black kids were present.<br>
<a href=“Marc Stier at Large – Reflections on Philosophy and politics in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Beyond”>http://blog.stier.net/?p=297</a></p>
<p>It has also been reported that the club regularly allows local high schools (predominantly white) to use the pool. The week before the Day Campers event, one of the local high school rented a full afternoon for a larger group of kids, without a single complaint. The kids had a great time. Ironically, one of the kids, the lone black kid in the class, also happened to be one of the day campers turned away the following week. I guess, when you are one black kid among 52 white kids, the complexion of the pool does not change much!</p>
<p>It is also evident that the local community and a number of club members were appalled by the treatment of the black kids.<br>
[Rally</a> condemns poolside manner | Philadelphia Daily News | 07/10/2009](<a href=“http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20090710_Rally_condemns_poolside_manner.html]Rally”>Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey News)</p>
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<p>What is not acceptable is when a few “loudmouth members” force the club to adopt Jim Crow restrictions on access to the pool by cancelling the agreements with the minority Day Camps. It is one thing to pull little Johnny from the pool because the black kids change the complexion of the pool. It is something entirely different to force the club to adopt permanent restrictions on access which will mostly affect minorities so that little Johnny will never have to be worried about some black kid stealing his Ipod. It is quite clear this community club does not have the legal right to adopt restrictive access policies that massively fall on minority kids, even when veiled in the thin disguise of safety. It is astonishing how the threat of a lawsuit and an investigation by the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission got the Board to reverse itself within a matter of days.</p>
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What’s astonishing about that? How much money do you think this pool has to defend a lawsuit? Cellardweller, you have been relentless in pushing the idea that this was all about race, and maybe you’re right. But you aren’t really listening to what anybody else has to say about it, and you’ve been using lots of heavily freighted language that isn’t really supported by the evidence.</p>
<p>It’s not supported by the evidence, but it’s not supported by common sense, either.</p>
<p>There is no comparison between a daycare group and either a normal day, where individual kids will be supervised by their own families; and there is no comparison between smaller kids and high school students.</p>
<p>Hunt, Please call out the points made by cellardwellar that you believe aren’t supported by the links provided so that they may be addressed.</p>
<p>As to zoosermom’s comments. She may be correct, I’ve read about horseplay by high school students at swim parks that has caused equipment to collapse and high school swim team work out drills that have caused swimmers to pass out on the bottom of the pool. I’ve never heard of either of those happening with smaller kids. I’ve also read about parents who left child-minding at poolside to lifeguards and siblings, which resulted in the sad, unfortunate death of a child.</p>
<p>“Children under five and adolescents between the ages of 15-24 have the highest drowning rates.” (from <a href=“http://www.poseidon-tech.com/us/statistics.html[/url]”>http://www.poseidon-tech.com/us/statistics.html</a>) and “Most young children who drowned in pools were last seen in the home, had been out of sight less than five minutes, and were in the care of one or both parents at the time.” (from <a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.htm[/url]”>http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.htm</a>)</p>
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<p>What if the club members (or some of them) pressured the club management not to allow outside non-members in … not because they were prejudiced against skin color, but because they simply wanted an atmosphere with relatively few children, and only members or their direct guests? BTW, that describes the pool I belong to, where it is not rented out to non-members or outside organizations under any circumstances that I’m aware of.</p>
<p>Interesting discussion. I have been following and I can sort of see both sides.</p>
<p>I can understand the poor planning, if the membership was not notified of a day camp arriving - they could have posted signs in advance of the event etc.
I can imagine some parents being surprised when a bunch of kids showed up who clearly were not members (due to their skin color).</p>
<p>However, please don’t make the assumption that kids who are at pools with their parents are being supervised. Parents take their kids to the pool so they can read a book, get a tan or socialize. IMO - kids who are on a day care field trip are far better supervised than kids with their parents. </p>
<p>It appears to me that the pool leaders, are not racist at all or perhaps they just didn’t realize that a day care from Philly could be full of black kids (after all aren’t all black kids on welfare?) - but that they caved to some local members who didn’t want to share their pool that day.
Hence due to a lack of communication a good will gesture has gone awry.</p>
<p>I can see where folks would want to spin this and not make the assumption that the members of the pool were not racist. Only they can answer that question.
I do wonder though if a couple of cub scout troops and brownie troops showed up, local kids with their troop leaders - would the reaction have been the same? Would they have worked out the problem with overcrowding?</p>
<p>I like to have been a fly on the wall when parents were explaining to their kids what has gone down. What would you say to your child who asked you why all “these kids” are in their pool?
I suspect that most parents said something like “You’re right Johnny! You dont have to share your pool with these kids from Philly - we pay a lot of money to join this pool.” Maybe not racist but not exactly inclusive either.
If more parents said “Johnny, go make some new friends - they go to daycare and can’t go to the pool everyday. They will only be here for a couple of hours.” This incident would not have happened.</p>
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<p>Whoa, whoa, whoa. Before this incident occurred … could the club have said that we will open up our facilities to community groups and define the community as, say, Huntingdon Valley or Abington, but not the entire city of Philadelphia?</p>
<p>Because I have to tell you, I wouldn’t have a problem with the pool I belong to (which is private) opening up their facilities to, say, the local high school for swim practice, or the local elementary school for an outing, or the local Girl Scout / Boy Scout troop so they can get a badge, but I don’t think they then need to be obligated to open their facilities to the entire city of Chicago. And I think they would have every right to limit their opening-up just to our suburb and maybe one or two neighboring suburbs.</p>
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<p>Of course they knew. Could we all stop acting as though NE Philly is some foreign place to people who live in Huntingdon Valley? The boundaries are FLUID. Half the people who live in HV grew up in NE Philly. Good grief, I haven’t lived in either NE Philly or HV for years, and I could figure out from the Creative Steps’ address what neighborhood they were from. </p>
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<p>I think it’s quite possible that a handful of club members were indeed racist and objected to black kids in the pool. I think it’s also quite possible that a handful of club members objected to lots-of-kids-in-the-pool-that-I-didn’t-know-about. I think both are possible.</p>
<p>JustAMomOf4, You pointed out that parents can be distracted when they take children to the pool and statistics from [Safe</a> Kids USA: Preventing accidental injury.](<a href=“http://www.usa.safekids.org/NSKW.cfm]Safe”>http://www.usa.safekids.org/NSKW.cfm) support that:
"Forty-six percent of drowning victims in the reviewed deaths were in the care of a parent at the time of the incident. Twenty-six percent were in the care of a relative other than a parent, including 5 percent in the care of a sibling younger than 18 years of age and 6 percent in the care of a grandparent. Ten percent of the drowning victims were completely unsupervised at the time of the drowning and determined by reviewers to have required supervision.
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Nearly all parents (94 percent) report that they always actively supervise their children while swimming. However, deeper examination reveals that parents participate in a variety of distracting behaviors while supervising, including talking to others (38 percent), reading (18 percent), eating (17 percent) and talking on the phone (11 percent).</p>
<p>One in five parents (20 percent) believes that when lifeguards are present, the lifeguard is the main person responsible for supervising children in the water.
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Most parents (55 percent) felt there were some circumstances where it is okay for a child to swim without adult supervision
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Parents are overconfident about their children’s safety and abilities around water. Although drowning is the second leading cause of injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14, more than half (55 percent) of parents say that they do not worry much or at all about their child drowning."</p>
<p>By the way, the study also notes “White children accounted for 69 percent of the reviewed drowning deaths and 73 percent of childhood drownings nationally.”</p>
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I think referring to “whites-only” lap lanes and Jim Crow fits what I said. I’m just pointing out, as Pizzagirl is, that there is more than one reasonable interpretation of the events that happened in this case, and that one shouldn’t be too quick to get out the torches and pitchforks. It is also my opinion, based on my understanding of the law, that a discrimination lawsuit against the pool club will go nowhere, because there will be insufficient evidence of racial discrimination by the club itself.</p>
<p>Here’s one statement of cellardweller’s that I have a problem with:</p>
<p>“The problem is really with clubs who can’t afford to be exclusive but seek nevertheless to provide a sheltered environment for their members.”</p>
<p>Who says that this club “seeks to provide a sheltered environment for its members”? It’s as ludicrous as saying that “Lifetime Fitness or Bally’s seeks to provide a sheltered environment for its members.” Belonging to a private pool does not make one “desiring of being sheltered” or “racist,” and the accusation that the club was founded for the express purpose of excluding other races is ludicrous. </p>
<p>Cellardweller, you don’t know the area. You don’t know the club. I do. I am willing to believe that the management didn’t adequately think through letting members know that large outside groups would be using the pool during X times. I am willing to believe there were a few loudmouths who made not-nice comments and harassed the management, and the management gave in. I am willing to believe they didn’t thoroughly think through the safety issues of bringing in large groups of children. That is a far cry from alleging that the club itself is racist, that overcrowding was “not an issue” (I have BEEN to this pool! I can easily see it being an issue!) and that the deep end swimming lanes were “for whites only.” That’s just stuff you’re making up. </p>
<p>BTW, a pool may be certified to hold a maximum of X people – that doesn’t mean that that’s the atmosphere that the pool-goers desire or want. The pool I belong to has very few people actually in the pool at one time. Many a time, my kids would be the only ones in the pool itself, which I thought was great - hey, there were 2 lifeguards and 2 kids, that’s a good ratio as far as I’m concerned. Most days there may just be a handful of people. That’s cool with me. I like that atmosphere.</p>
<p>I can see that some people might complain about letting the Boy Scouts use the pool since the organization is homophobic - there could be protests.</p>
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<p>Wouldn’t there be stronger evidence of discrimination if the daycare had asked the swim club if they could rent the facilities, and the swim club said no / denied access upfront? It’s kind of hard to argue an organization is discriminatory when they approach people with an invitation to use the facilities, no?</p>
<p>^
change it to Campfire or the local Coed Soccer club. </p>
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Bingo. </p>
<p>I do think “safety” is just an excuse. There is a ration of the number of people on the pool deck vs # lifeguards who can be on duty at one given time. If it wasn’t within the guidelines the kids should have been let on the pool deck. And day care workers and parents don’t count as lifeguards - they count as patrons.</p>
<p>And, I also think it’s possible for the number of kids / lifeguards to be within the guidelines of what the pool can mathematically handle, but for the atmosphere to be not what the members desire (leaving race out of the equation entirely). I think my pool filled to whatever the maximum capacity allowed by law would be a miserable place to be in, and I would consider it “too crowded.”</p>
<p>Again, strictly private clubs (see definition above) are not subject to Title VII and have much greater leeway in controlling access to their facilities. But it does require a lot more than simply not renting out the facility to non-members. How selective are the membership policies? How high are the fees? Do they allow month to month memberships? Do they advertise for membership? What are the guest policies? Can guests pay for food or use of the facilities? </p>
<p>This facility which calls itself a Community Swim Club is quite different from your truly private Country Club. It is semi-private club with low membership fees (around $600/year). It openly advertises for members, provides for online facility rental of its facilities to non-members. It is run mostly by volunteers. It is very likely the PHRC will rule the facility subject to Title VII. At that point, the same rules that apply to restaurants and hotels as far as access will control. </p>
<p>They can’t have a policy that limits use the facility or rent facilities for events to residents of the town of XYZ for instance or the Boy Scouts but not Jehovah Witnesses. You simply cannot discriminate on any basis prohibited under Title VII, including gender , even if the effect is indirect. You could have a rule restricting parties based on size if justified. If the pool is approved for 100 people and requires one lifeguard for every 20 guests, you can obviously restrict to the maximum capacity just as a restaurant.</p>
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<p>So they’d be obligated to host the summer outing of the Young Nazis club? Opening up the facilities to ANYONE beyond members and members’ personally invited guests means that? Wow.</p>
<p>If I own a restaurant that serves the public, I have to let the Young Nazis club hold their monthly luncheons and officer installation there? I have no right to say no?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, Your question reminds me of a recent issue at Georgia Tech:
"It might not be encouraged, but it is now officially OK to malign someone in a Georgia Tech dorm. And verbal assaults and derogatory signs? They’re allowed, too.
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Georgia Tech retracts policy banning offensive speech</p>
<p>By The Associated Press via the First Amendment Center, August 17, 2006</p>
<p>ATLANTA — Georgia Tech has agreed to retract a policy banning offensive speech on campus as part of an ongoing federal lawsuit against the university. "
(from [Suing</a> for the “religious right” to hate](<a href=“http://www.jewsonfirst.org/06a/gatech.php]Suing”>http://www.jewsonfirst.org/06a/gatech.php))</p>
<p>Nazis aren’t a protected class, Pizzagirl. They are protected by first amendment free speech rights, of course, but not by the equal protection clause. Thus, while a community can’t ban Nazis from assembling or publicizing their views, a private organization, even one with a public dimension, could legitimately bar them from their grounds. There is a legally recognized difference between discriminating on the basis of an inherent characteristic (race, sex) and discriminating on the basis of a chosen affiliation. Granted, religion is a special case that muddies these boundaries, but the special status afforded religion is based on a long history of constitutional and legal protections absent in the case of a neo-Nazi group.</p>
<p>I agree that that the pool management was probably well-intentioned, inviting the group in good faith and then backing off when they realized how upset members were. But at the same time, I do not think this kind of uproar would have occurred in the case of a predominantly white club. In that case, I imagine members would have been annoyed and complained to management afterward rather than causing such a scene that the group had to be immediately barred from the pool. This goes beyond the few people who might have made overtly racial comments - whether consciously or subconsciously, I imagine that a number of parents pulling their kids for “safety” reasons would probably not have had the same knee-jerk reaction to a group of white kids.</p>
<p>The problem for club owners is that unless this is part of a uniform policy, you can’t give into even complaints likely to produce a disparate impact on minorities. The whole point of disparate impact laws is to prevent this kind of situation - while there may be a motive for barring the kids that is not directly racist (i.e, members complained), if it comes out that similar action has not been taken against relatively similar groups of mostly white swimmers, I think we can reasonably conclude that the club implemented a policy in a way that had a disparate impact on minorities.</p>