Swim Club Accused Of
Discrimination
Officials at a daycare accuse a club in Montgomery County of discriminating against the minority kids in their program.

They're inner city children spending the summer in the basement of a Philadelphia elementary school.

But every Monday afternoon, they were supposed to get a welcome break at the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, where they'd get to swim for an hour and a half.

But after only one Monday, the plan derailed.

"I get a phone call from the board chair saying, you're no longer going to be able to swim here,” Alethea Wright of Creative Steps, Inc.

She says the board president of the Valley Club didn't explain why. But she says the reason was obvious to her.

"The other members were taking their children out while our children were there swimming,” Wright said.

But she couldn't ignore it after several black children in her daycare program allegedly overheard a white mother complaining.

The daycare had paid for the entire summer upfront, but they got their check for $1,950 back in full.

The president of the Valley Club, John Duesler, told Fox 29 by phone the club "underestimated the impact the children would have." He said they "fundamentally changed the atmosphere" at the pool.

But Duesler insisted race "had nothing to do with the decision" to rescind the agreement. He did admit several club members had complained, but insisted none of those complaints involved race.

The head of the daycare isn't convinced.

"If the children didn't misbehave, we paid our membership in full, here's the check to prove it, what else could it be? We were the only minorities there,” Wright said.

The club president said allowing daycares at the pool was an "experiment" that didn't work out.

He said other programs were disinvited as well. One daycare counselor told us she just didn't expect this to happen in 2009, with a black president in the oval office.

More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.

"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor.

The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

The next day the club told the camp director that the camp's membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.

"I said, 'The parents don't want the refund. They want a place for their children to swim,'" camp director Aetha Wright said.

Campers remain unsure why they're no longer welcome.

"They just kicked us out. And we were about to go. Had our swim things and everything," said camper Simer Burwell.

The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded.

"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

While the parents await an apology, the camp is scrambling to find a new place for the kids to beat the summer heat.

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