Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Stratis
There's a big difference between hosting a targeted event and discrimination. Every year I play in a men's softball league during the summer. Is that gender discrimination, because the city hosting the league doesn't allow women into it? Is it somehow different if we look at their full offerings and see that, gosh, they also have co-ed and women's only leagues? What about all of those public schools that have separate girls/boys sports teams? Is it gender discrimination to not let a girl on the boys soccer team, or a boy on the girls swim team? Look at that libraries offerings - they offer a whole lot of stuff that isn't gendered. They have age ranges listed for many groups - is that age discrimination?
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In the cases you list though, women have their own groups for basically the same things. That does not seem to be the case in this instance with this library. If the library were offering a girls class and a boys class I doubt there would be a complaint, but because they are offering a class that excludes girls without any alternative, the case could be made that it's discriminatory.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this should go to court; I was merely making the observation that if the family wanted to pursue legal action they would probably have a good chance of winning based on examples I've seen of other cases somewhat similar to this. I also think that the library is being stupid for opening themselves up to the potential legal issues (and the costs associated with fighting it) that such litigation would impose, and that the very simple solution is to either hold two classes or not block girls from joining it if they're interested.