Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Grand Rapids Marriot Drops Gender Segregation

In a previous post, I wrote about the Marriot Hotel in Grand Rapids, MI that announced recently that it intended to reserve the entire 19th floor of the hotel for women only, and charge a $25-30 nightly premium.

According to this AP report, "Soon afterward, the hotel received a "tremendous response" from its customers and others, and the decision was made not to go forward with the gender-segregated floor, a Mariot spokesperson said."

Probably a good idea since the Public Accommodation section of the the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that "All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation (any inn, hotel, motel that provides lodging to transient guests), without discrimination or segregation."

3 Comments:

At 6/12/2007 11:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK. But, if they can't put women on one floor and men on another, how come they can have segregated bathrooms?

 
At 6/12/2007 4:36 PM, Blogger Adam said...

walt g.,

It wasn't one floor for men and one for women; it was only one floor for women. This wasn't an instance where the "separate but equal" could apply because there was no equal unlike bathrooms where there is at least one for each gender

 
At 6/13/2007 6:12 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Adam,

I wasn't referring to Marriot specifically. I was applying a hard look at § 201(a)(1) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Without the case law that results from the statute as precedent in the interpretation of the Act, segregated bathrooms are not allowed as this statute is written. Since the purpose of the Act is to end discrimination and stop “separate but equal” treatment, a literal reading of the Act results in an absurdity. I’m a plumber/pipefitter by trade, so I was mostly joking.

 

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