Women-only pool hours at a NY community pool is drawing complaints and controversy
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City municipal pool that maintains female-only hours so that Hasidic Jewish women can swim with no men present has raised alarms among critics who say the accommodation to a particular religious group violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
But defenders say the women-only swim sessions at the Metropolitan Recreation Center give women whose community separates the sexes a rare chance to exercise.
"Why deprive them?" said New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat who represents a heavily Orthodox Jewish district in Brooklyn. "Really, you're not taking away from anyone else."
The rec center in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood has apparently kept women-only pool hours since the 1990s, but the practice only came to the attention of the wider public when someone complained about it to the city's Commission on Human Rights.
Commission spokesman Seth Hoy said it received an anonymous tip "a few months back" that the indoor pool might be violating the city's human rights law, which bans sex discrimination in public accommodations.
Hoy said the commission reached out to the city Department of Parks and Recreation to discuss its pool policies.
According to Hikind, swimming pool staffers then started telling the Hasidic women that the female-only hours would be discontinued on June 11.
"A number of women called my office very distraught," Hikind said.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3259421f36124a34be17b68654a7bf4e/no-men-allowed-women-only-pool-hours-draw-complaints-nyc
The pool then reversed itself and said the women-only hours will remain for now. But it may be in clear violation of the city's own laws.
Mayor De Blasio dodged a question last week related to the controversy. He was asked if a transgender woman would be allowed during women only pool hours even if it violates the religion of women there. He would only say that the city is reviewing the case.
The controversy is similar to one erupting in Sweden. A pool in the city of Malmo went to women only hours to accommodate the growing Muslim migrant population. Some Muslim women say they are not permitted by their religion to swim in the company of men. The issue has lead to outrage in a country that prides itself on gender equality.
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