Making Waves

[July 30th, 2008]

A group of Somali women have asked Portland Parks and Recreation to accommodate their Muslim faith by allowing an after-hours, women-only swim time at a city pool to be staffed only by female lifeguards.

The city’s response?

No way. Anti-discrimination employment law won’t allow it, Deputy City Attorney Lory Kraut wrote in an 11-page memo to the parks bureau June 23.

But that’s not the end of it—at least, not yet. The Somali women are pressing the city for another solution.

They’re not alone nationwide. Other public and private institutions are wrestling with how to rework rules that don’t take into account some Muslim women’s values concerning modesty.

The larger question is, how far can and should Portland go to adapt its policies to immigrants’ religious and cultural practices?

Kayse Jama, executive director of the local Center for Intercultural Organizing, says Portland should be flexible when it comes to following rules that have the unintended consequence of excluding new communities from public spaces.

And that’s exactly what’s happening at Portland’s 13 public pools, according to the group of Somali women led by Lul Abdulle.

Somali women don’t tend to use the city’s public pools because doing so would require wearing bathing suits in front of men who aren’t members of those women’s immediate families—a practice that goes against some Muslims’ religious customs.

In response, Abdulle and others from the Somali Women’s Association earlier this summer proposed renting a public pool—after normal business hours. They wanted to arrange to have a female lifeguard on duty and to shield the women and girls from public view by hanging curtains or other shades around the pool.

“This is a no-brainer,” Jama says. “When cultural or religious issues arise, it’s important that we accommodate them. It sends a message to these communities that they’re welcome here.”

There is precedent elsewhere in the country for the accommodation.

Harvard University, a private institution, sparked a controversy in March when it decided to establish women-only hours at its on-campus gyms to give female Muslim students opportunities to exercise without fully covering their bodies and without men in their presence. During those women-only hours, only women work at the gyms.

In 2006, Michigan’s Washtenaw County changed its swimwear policy for public pools to allow Muslim girls and women to wear bathing suits that cover their entire bodies. Before 2006, all swimmers had to wear traditional bathing suits.

Portland’s decision to deny Somali women their request to rent a public pool and have only female lifeguards hinges on two concerns. One, city officials say male lifeguards could sue for discrimination. The other is the possibility that accommodating a religious practice could violate the First Amendment by appearing to endorse Islam.

“Even though Portland Parks and Recreation’s intent would be to provide access to an underserved group of citizens, its purely secular purpose would not be enough to legitimize the requested accommodation,” Kraut writes.

“Although the after-hours rental may aid in diminishing the community from perceiving the accommodation as an endorsement of the Muslim religion, it would not eliminate it completely,” Kraut writes in her memo. “The potential would still exist for the female swimmers (especially younger children) to perceive such action as symbolic endorsement of their religion.”

Lisa Turpel, a parks bureau manager, says she plans to meet with Abdulle and the Somali Women’s Association to find alternatives. One option might include giving the women referrals to private pools with fewer restraints.

This request is the second or third of its kind over the years, Turpel adds. And Jama says it’s time to find a fix.

“The city has an obligation to do that,” he says.