{"id":3200,"date":"2009-10-14T10:51:56","date_gmt":"2009-10-14T16:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.myphillylawyer.com\/?p=285"},"modified":"2018-06-28T17:12:43","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T22:12:43","slug":"swimming-pool-discrimination-case-pa-agency-rules-against-swim-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/2009\/10\/14\/swimming-pool-discrimination-case-pa-agency-rules-against-swim-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimming pool discrimination case leaves much to ponder"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was supposed to be a summer of swimming and fun for a group of\u00a0 56 African-American and Hispanic children from a\u00a0 Northeast Philadelphia daycare center who were to head regularly to a private swim club in the Montgomery County suburbs to beat the heat.<\/p>\n

\"sparklingImage credit: \u00a9 iStockphoto.com\/paulprescott72<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, their first visit turned ugly on June 29 when some of the children reported to their chaperones that they overheard verbal racial slurs and ugly comments from some of the other people at the swim club that day.\u00a0 What happened is still being investigated for possible lawsuits by some of the families,\u00a0 but recently the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission ruled that the campers were indeed victims of racial discrimination at the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, according to a story in The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>.\u00a0 One family filed a complaint with the agency on behalf of their child after the incident.\u00a0 The swim club refunded the $1,950 that the daycare facility paid for what was to be a once-a-week summer contract and told the day care operators that the children couldn’t come back for safety reasons because there were too many kids using the pool at one time.\u00a0 The swim club also said the day care group could not return because their presence was causing “financial concerns from members requesting the return of their membership fees” due to the attendance of the children,\u00a0 according to the Human Relations Commission’s report.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In its 33-page ruling, the Human Relations Commission found that “probable cause exists” to show that the swim club denied the children the use of its facilities because of racial discrimination.\u00a0 The\u00a0 report noted that the swim club had no African-American members this year or last year.\u00a0 Also, the report stated, the swim club “made a concerted effort to expand the geographic range of its membership by engaging in a marketing campaign” this year but that those efforts “were mainly directed at areas with overwhelmingly Caucasian populations.”\u00a0 The club failed to “direct such marketing efforts at areas with significant African-American populations,” the report said.\u00a0 In a nutshell this club engaged in a concerted practice of racial discrimination. \u00a0As a result, they have hurt many, including 56 innocent children. \u00a0And that’s no laughing matter. \u00a0Now it’s time to right their wrongs.<\/p>\n

The swim club was ordered by the agency to pay a $50,000 civil penalty for discrimination to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as well as other damages to the family that filed the complaint.\u00a0 The case will likely be appealed, and could even be expanded to the other children who were affected.<\/p>\n

But beyond that, the message of this case is crystal clear — racial discrimination is against the law and if you feel you are being discriminated against, then it’s time to get legal advice from a lawyer to protect your rights.<\/p>\n

No one should be discriminated against by anyone because of the color of their skin.<\/p>\n

That’s human decency and that’s the law.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was supposed to be a summer of swimming and fun for a group of\u00a0 56 African-American and Hispanic children from a\u00a0 Northeast Philadelphia daycare center who were to head regularly to a private swim club in the Montgomery County suburbs to beat the heat. Image credit: \u00a9 iStockphoto.com\/paulprescott72 Instead, their first visit turned ugly…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6132,"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200\/revisions\/6132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myphillylawyer.com\/yue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}