Race-row swimming club denies discrimination
The head of a private swimming club at the centre of a civil rights-style race row defended cancelling the memberships of dozens of minority children, saying it was for safety reasons.
“We deeply regret this whole situation,” John Duesler, president of the board of directors of The Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, told reporters gathered at the entrance last night.
The Creative Steps camp had arranged for 65 mostly black and Hispanic children to swim each Monday afternoon at the club, which is in a leafy suburb of Philadelphia, this summer.
Director Alethea Wright said that shortly after they arrived for their first visit, some children reported hearing racial comments, and the camp’s €1,400 fee was refunded a few days later.
But Mr Duesler said the number of children in the shallow section of the pool, many of them unable to swim, convinced officials that there was a problem. “It was definitely an unsafe situation,” he said.
The club’s actions have prompted an investigation by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and made headlines across the country.
The commission was inundated with calls from all over the country, said spokeswoman Shannon Powers.
“It got bumped to the top of the priority list, so we are devoting an extraordinary amount of resources to investigating it,” she said. “It’s a matter we would like to see resolved quickly.”
Much of the attention has focused on an earlier statement by Mr Duesler voicing concern that so many children would “change the complexion” or atmosphere of the club, which he admitted was “a terrible choice of words”.
“It was never my intention to imply anything in terms of racial make-up,” he said. Mr Duesler said he heard no racial comments from members and that any such remarks did not represent the club’s position.
Ms Wright, however, said the club knew what size group to expect and had hosted a school group of a similar size a week earlier. She said the comments reported by children and the parents’ actions after her group arrived told a different story.
“If they’re open to membership, why were parents pulling their children out and standing there with their arms crossed?” she said.
Meanwhile, the director of another camp that also had its membership cancelled said she believed the club’s explanation that numbers, not ethnicity, was the reason.
“It was definitely an overcrowding issue,” said Joanne Rosenthal of Storybook Children’s Centre of north-east Philadelphia. “It was obviously more than they were used to dealing with.”
Ms Rosenthal said at least half of her 25-member group was made up of racial minorities and their money was also returned after one visit. But she said she thought the group had been treated “extremely fairly”.
“It’s not a small pool, but two thirds of it is deep water, which children are not allowed in unless they have passed a deep water test, so really, only one-third can be used.” she said.
Storybook signed up with the private club because city pools were to be closed this summer because of budget cuts, but the nearby public pool did open after all and the children were swimming there, she said.
Ms Wright said several institutions had offered to host the Creative Steps children at their pools for the summer.
