Condo’s Sex Segregation of Pool Hours Violates Housing Law

A Lakewood, N.J., condominium’s policy of segregating its pool hours by gender violates the Fair Housing Act, the Third Circuit said April 22.

A Country Place Condominium Association is a “55 and over” community in Lakewood, N.J. The association adopted sex-segregated pool hours to accommodate its Orthodox Jewish residents. The schedule included 56 hours of segregated swimming and 12 hours of integrated swimming Sunday through Friday. Two residents who wanted to swim with opposite-sex family members during segregated hours challenged the schedule as discriminatory under the Fair Housing Act.

The association argued the schedule wasn’t discriminatory because it wasn’t motivated ...