Everybody in the Pool

Hundreds of U.S. suburbs boast a new lure for homeowners: a community-owned recreational center. By purchasing shares and paying a fee, residents can join a "neighborhood association" and use its swimming pool. But what if a resident is a Negro?

The answer seemed obvious to Paul E. Sullivan, a white systems analyst at the Pentagon. As a homeowner in a suburban development in Virginia's Fairfax County, Sullivan belonged to the residents' swimming club, which is called Little Hunting Park Inc. And in 1965, when he rented his house to Theodore R. Freeman Jr., a Negro economist at the Agriculture Department, Sullivan assumed that Freeman's lease entitled him to join the club. Instead, the club barred the Negro tenant. When Sullivan protested, the club barred him too. Sullivan was angry enough to join Freeman in fighting the case up to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. They lost: the judges upheld a lower-court ruling that Little Hunting Park was a private club, and was thus free to restrict the pool to whites.

Last week, by a vote of 5 to 3, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling and upheld the right of both plaintiffs to sue the Little Hunting Park club in a state court. Speaking for the majority, Justice William O. Douglas held that the "private club" was legally no such thing because "no selective element other than race" was the qualification for membership. "What we have here," wrote Douglas, "is a device functionally comparable to a racially restrictive covenant."

Unhealthy Atmosphere. The decision --from which Chief Justice Warren Burger dissented*--does not touch truly private clubs. But it may deter blatant discrimination in similar recreational centers, which number as many as 130 in the Virginia-Maryland suburbs alone.

Ironically, Freeman himself will not use the pool in Little Hunting Park; though he can seek damages, he is now a U.S. agricultural aide in Tokyo. Sullivan has leased the house to another Negro. Air Force Sergeant James L. Malloy, but he hesitates to join the club. "There is a very unhealthy atmosphere here," says Malloy, "and I know my children won't be welcome at the pool."

*The dissenters criticized the majority for basing their ruling on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, since Congress had passed newer open-housing legislation in 1968. Arguing that interpreting the old statute was thus of little importance to the public, the minority said that the court should not have heard the case.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.