ADL Charges Bias at Exclusive Palm Springs Country Club

The Pacific southwest regional office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has charged that an exclusive country club in which some of Palm Springs most prominent citizens are members engages in “institutional discrimination.” According to Al Navsky, chairman of the ADL’s regional office. “It was recently reported that the assistant golf professional at the O’Donnell Golf Club. David Ross, had admitted that applications at O’Donnell are carefully screened, ‘otherwise, you’d have a lot of Jews coming in there all the time. We try to keep them down to fifteen percent.”

Navsky pointed out that the ADL’s concerns are increased “by the apparent involvement of the City of Palm Springs in the discriminatory policies of the O’Donnell Club. O’Donnell operates on a long-term lease from the City of Palm Springs on city owned property.”

The ADL, Navsky stated, is considering possible legal action against the club and the City of Palm Springs because of Ross’ “admission of the club’s discriminatory policies.” He added that the regional ADL has written to the mayor and City Council of Palm Springs regarding the club’s policy and has requested that a “thorough investigation of the club’s admissions policies be undertaken. We have informed the leaders of Palm Springs that discrimination by a lessee of the city operating on municipal property implicates the city and its leaders. We have urged the mayor to determine what the club’s policies are and take proper action.”

Navsky noted that the Supreme Court has declared it to be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for an institution utilizing public property to discriminate on the basis of race, religion or national origin. According to the Supreme Court ruling in one landmark case, he continued, when a state leases public property, the proscriptions of the Fourteenth Amendment must be complied with by the lessee as though they were binding covenants written into the agreement itself.