Unlawful Gender Discrimination?

The sports world provides an endless supply of material for an employment law blog–at least, for my employment law blog.  From the Town of Dennis (Massachusetts) comes a story of alleged discrimination.  A top woman golfer was refused the right to play in a golf tournament with her father at the Dennis Pines Golf Course.  Why?  She’s a woman.  She’s filed suit, and the golf world–perhaps, indeed, the world–awaits the outcome. 

Augusta National Golf Club, home to the upcoming (April) Masters, also bars women.   At least, it has no women members; women are allowed to play as guests of men who are members.  Augusta National is a private club, and the Dennis Pines Golf Course is a public course, which provides a better argument that the exclusion of women is unconstitutional.  Being in Massachusetts, the author of the Boston Globe article about this matter found it easy to seek out a Harvard law professor for an opinion on this dispute.  “The Supreme Court has lower standards for justifying gender divisions than racial ones and long ago recognized that men and women have different bodies, sometimes justifying segregation.  If it were football, I don’t think she’d win.  But it’s harder to say that about golf.”

What does this teach us about employment law?  Not much.  There are no statutes (at least, none that I know of) prohibiting golf clubs and courses from discriminating against women members or players.  (Whether the U.S. Constitution prevents it is still an open question.)  There are plenty of statutes, on the other hand, that prohibit employers from discriminating on the basis of gender.  From a practical standpoint, these kinds of developments bleed over into the workplace sometimes, causing some provincial types to wonder if golf clubs can keep women out, then why can’t our company. 

But it’s just the 21st century.  The 22nd will be here before we know it.