United States v. Young Men's Christian Ass'n

310 F. Supp. 79, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12938
CourtDistrict Court, D. South Carolina
DecidedFebruary 6, 1970
DocketCiv. A. No. 68-267
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 310 F. Supp. 79 (United States v. Young Men's Christian Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Young Men's Christian Ass'n, 310 F. Supp. 79, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12938 (D.S.C. 1970).

Opinion

FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND DECREE

DONALD RUSSELL, District Judge.

This is an action instituted by the Attorney General under authority of Section 2000a-6, 42 U.S.C., and Section 1345, 28 U.S.C., against the defendant Young Men’s Christian Association of Columbia, South Carolina. Trial was had before me, at which testimony was admitted on behalf of both plaintiff and defendant. Thereafter, both parties filed exhaustive briefs, setting forth their respective positions. After hearing the testimony and upon consideration of the arguments of counsel, including their proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, the Court makes the following Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law herein:

FINDINGS OF FACT

(1) The defendant is a tax exempt, non-profit, eleemosynary corporation operated under the title Young Men’s Christian Association of Columbia, South Carolina, and chartered under the laws of South Carolina.

(2) It is governed by a twenty-one member Board of Directors elected by the membership of the defendant Association at annual meetings held in May. Such directors elect a full-time General Secretary, who is responsible for the day-to-day operation by the Association of its administrative and physical facilities. It, also, operates through a number of committees, who are expected to report to the Board monthly. Among such committees is one on membership. The General Secretary is an ex officio member of all committees,

(3) The defendant is not connected with either the national or international [80]*80Y.M.C.A. organizations, though it has customarily made an annual voluntary contribution to the foreign work of the National Council of Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States and on occasions in the past has made some voluntary financial contributions to the work of the National Council itself. It does not participate in the local United Fund and derives its income solely from dues paid by its members and by income from certain investment funds available to it. In order to secure dues-paying members, it conducts annually in February, a membership drive in the Columbia area to secure renewals from old members and to solicit new members. It has at this time between five and six thousand members. So far as the record indicates, it has established no ceiling on its membership, though its physical facilities may provide a limit. It promotes its annual membership drive with donated radio, television and newspaper advertising and through the distribution of pamphlets outlining its services.

(4) All funds of the Association, whether received in the form of dues or by way of return on investments, are deposited in a single account and are disbursed on order of the Association’s Treasurer.

(5) There are six different types of memberships in the Association:

(a) A Boy’s membership, which costs $20.00 annually, and is available to boys between the ages of 8 and 16. In order to stimulate this program, the Association encourages adults to sponsor memberships in behalf of worthwhile boys who may not be able to afford the yearly fee: a Big Brother membership at $20.00 a year, and a Two Big Brother membership at $40.00 a year.

(b) A Senior membership, which costs $25.00 annually, and is available to men 17 years of age and older. This membership allows free use of all the Association’s facilities except the Health Club, which the member may use as often as he likes providing he pays $2.00 on each occasion.

(c) A Business Men’s membership, which costs $40.00, and is available on the same terms as the Senior membership, the only difference being the size of locker which the member receives.

(d) A Health Club membership which costs $100.00 annually, and differs from the Business Men’s membership in allowing free use of the Health Club.

(e) A Gray-Y membership, which is a Boy’s Club membership, and costs $250.-00 annually. The members of the Club participate in seasonal sports activities at the Columbia schools which have requested the program. Twelve city schools currently participate in this program.

(f) A Dormitory membership, which costs $2.50 quarterly ($10.00 a year) and entitles the holder, upon payment of the dormitory rental, to sleep in the dormitory rooms and use all physical facilities on the same basis as a Senior member.

(6) The Association has no specific, detailed qualifications for membership in any of its programs other than as expressed in its Constitution that “Any young man of good moral character may become a member”. Each applicant, however, is required to fill out an application form, which is available upon inquiry of the Desk Clei'k stationed in the Association’s lobby. The information required on the application form in all programs, other than that involving use of the dormitory facilities, includes the applicant’s name, address, telephone number, and identification of his church affiliation. While theoretically such applications are to be approved by the Membership Committee of the Association’s Board, in actual practice they are approved routinely by either the General Secretary or the Physical Department Director without any meeting of the Membership Committee and without any vote of either the Association’s Board or its membership. The grounds on which an application is occasionally disapproved are, in the words of the General Secretary, when the applicant is known [81]*81to be an alcoholic, a thief, or a bad credit risk. The criterion for approval was stated to be the sincerity and willingness of the applicant to participate and join in the use of the Association’s facilities, though it was not clear how the General Secretary could normally determine this from new members from the meager information available to him on the application form.

(7) The application for dormitory accommodations, though requiring the applicant to join the Association, included an agreement by the applicant to abide by the rules and regulations applicable to occupants of the dormitory facilities and requested two references. No letters of reference were required. The approval of the applications — certainly at times — was perfunctory and involved no interview of the applicant.

(8) The facilities of the Association are all located in a seven-story building located on Sumter Street in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. The building includes a dormitory, shower rooms, a swimming pool, a chapel, meeting rooms, exercise rooms, basketball courts, handball courts, squash courts and health club facilities. Attendance cards are maintained on members using these facilities and access thereto is controlled by the Desk Clerk in charge of the membership files.

(9) Informal sports teams, assembled by members without assistance from the staff of the Association itself, have been formed from the membership and such informal teams have occasionally competed with similar teams in Georgia and North Carolina and at the Association’s facilities in Columbia. On a few rare occasions, too, public exhibitions by well known sports figures, almost exclusively from without South Carolina, have been held at the facility at which an admission fee was charged. The Columbia Churches basketball league regularly uses each year the basketball courts of the Association and, through financial arrangement with the University of South Carolina, the handball and squash courts of the Association are used by the Physical Education Department of that institution at agreed times.

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Bluebook (online)
310 F. Supp. 79, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12938, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-young-mens-christian-assn-scd-1970.