Every once in a while a politician or other luminary will make headlines for belonging to a “whites only” country club. That most recently happened with Katon Dawson who was in the running for chairmanship of the RNC.
But do these clubs’ membership guidelines explicitly bar blacks, Jews and other minorities? Or is it the type of thing where they explain away the fact that they don’t have any non-white members by saying that no qualified minorities have ever tried applying or using some such excuse?
And being private clubs, how much leeway do they have in skirting civil rights laws?
Also has anyone here ever been to a “whites only” country club, and if so how does it stack to the Caddyshack stereotype?
I beleive that having such a race-based restriction would actually be illegal (they were found contrary to the 14th Amendment I beleive)…
That said the Dallas suburb in which George Bush now lives had such a bar on their books up until 2001.
Why would a private club be subject to the 14th Amendment?
A private club can restrict its membership any way it pleases. There is no 14th Amendment issue.
IIRC, Augusta still has a policy of no women.
Not really. The article you link to states that these covenants have been unenforceable for more than sixty years.
Millions of homeowners across the country have these covenants in their deeds, as in many states it is nearly impossible to remove them.
Indeed, not only does the private club not face any First or Fourteenth Amendment issues itself, but there are potential First/Fourteenth Amendment issues if the federal government or the states wish to force a private club to accept members it prefers to exclude, regardless of the reason.
Forest Lake Country Club in Columbia, S.C.
*Dawson called scrutiny surrounding his 12-year membership in the 80-year-old country club with a whites-only deed as “a challenge” but, in a lengthy answer, he said that he was prepared to answer questions about it, citing the way his family conducted its auto-parts business as well as his record on diversity issues as state party chairman. *
I’m certain that there are a bunch of them like this. You’d think that they’d remove that language from their charters (and keep being exclusively white) but some apparantly don’t feel the need to.
Ummm yes it did. It may have been unenforceable from the day it was written, but it WAS there. And wasn’t removed until 2001. That is completely unconscionable IMO
That is truely shocking to me. How anyone could ever sign such a document after about 1965 is beyond me. I mean I’m sure plenty of people would be outraged by it in 1965, and good for them , but in 1975 ? in 1985 ? 1995 ? 2000 ? Are you seriously saying someone sat down in to buy a fancy new house in January of 2001, skimmed through the papers… “no more than 3 cats” sure, “no drugs” whatever, “No loud parties” I guess, “No negros” no problem. WTF!!! If it was me at that point there are two options, either the covenant gets changed, or I get another house elsewhere.
Except for the fact they did in-fact remove it (only several decades after such things became an anathema to any civilized right-thinking person).
“Oh its quite hard to change these things” excuse doesn’t cut to me.
That’s mainly the type of thing I was wondering about - if their charters or even current membership guidelines actually contain language that specifically bars minorities, and if such prohibitions are actively enforced. When the membership committee or whoever makes decisions on who to let in looks at an application from a black person, do they actually say, “Well he looks like he’d make a fine member, but he’s black, so we can’t let him join.”
Generally, in order to join a private country club, an existing member has to “sponsor” you. They vouch for your character, etc.
The big clubs that are capable of hosting a PGA tournament all have black members these days. I think the PGA has a policy of not playing at clubs that discriminate. Some smaller clubs in certain places just really don’t want any black people to be members. It still happens.
If they have such a policy, it’s got to be limited to racial discrimination; they play at Augusta.
I doubt Augusta has an official, written policy that says women can’t be members. Unofficial and spoken, yes.
I know it’s not your fault, because that’s what the article says, and that’s even what Google maps says, but please let me, as a native Columbian, make clear that Forest Lake Country Club is in Forest Acres, not Columbia.
Masters is not an official PGA tourney. They did however invite their first black member the same year the PGA put in the rule about no white only clubs on the PGA tour.
These policies are not written down just like NBA teams don’t have a written policy against short guys who can’t shoot, pass or play defense.
I happen to have first-hand knowledge of a clause that is in everyone’s property deed in one USA area and is required to be perpetually attached to all real estate sales that prohibits anyone of “non-caucasian extraction” from not only owning property, but sleeping overnight. They penalty proscribed is to automatically, without recourse to courts, lose the ownership of the property where the offense occured (it would revert to the previous owner).
Attorneys tell us that the clause must be included with every deed, but of course it has absolutely no legal validity anymore.
Some people, embarrassed at what they are forced to sign, have suggested that we initiate legal action to have this removed from every deed, perhaps 500 of them. Others say that the expense and airing of ancient dirty linen in public isn’t worth the moral gain.
It is interesting how things have changed. The family story says that my grandmother, in the 1930’s, refused to sign that part of the deed when she bought the land. The attorney said, “It doesn’t matter if you sign it or not, it’s the law.”
Since the 1960’s, the attorneys now say, “Sign it or don’t; either way, it has no effect.”
There were “sundown laws” that said black people must leave certain towns by sundown. That’s why it said they could not stay overnight.
They mentioned Forest Lake in an article in the paper a few months ago about the local social clubs - according to the article, black people are certainly welcome to join there if they want to, it just seems nobody wants to.
And it is totally in Forest Acres, which matters a hell of a lot if you get caught speeding there.
Huh. Moto and I see eye-to-eye for once. 
The OP’s question is probably answered in the affirmative – yes, there are ones that OFFICIALLY have such bans. I suspect the majority of them quietly ignore such bans.
The reason is, like restrictive covenants that ‘run with the land,’ some such clubs were chartered by a ‘private law’ state incorporation statute in a day when discrimination was less socially reprehensible. To reincorporate with a charter with the ‘no blacks or Jews’ clause removed would, first, remove the cachet of age and respectability from the club, and second, be costly and call in political capital unnecessarily. So, like the man with a house with an unenforceable restrictive covenant, they leave it in place and simply ignore it as illegal.
I think you overestimate how many people read these deeds closely, and how many people read them closely and don’t want to finish, finally, the whole damn exhausting process of buying a house.