Swim club asks minority kids to come back

PHILADELPHIA, July 12 (UPI) -- A swim club that ejected campers from a largely minority Philadelphia day camp has asked the kids to come back and use the pool, the club director's wife said.

Valley Club President John Duesler had already said he regretted how he explained why the Huntingdon Valley, Pa., club would not host children from Creative Steps Day Camp and did not mean it was because the children are predominantly black and Hispanic, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

"There is a lot of concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion ... the atmosphere of the club," Duesler had originally told a Philadelphia TV station.

"This is a terrible misinterpretation of what I stand for. This is just wrong," Duesler subsequently said. "That was a terrible choice of words, I admit."

Duesler said he had been referring to the size of the day camp group and had meant to say the club did not have enough lifeguards to ensure everyone's safety.

At a Sunday meeting, Valley Club members voted to try to resolve the issue with the day camp, CNN reported.

"As long as we can work out safety issues, we'd like to have (the day camp children) back," Duesler's wife, Bernice Duesler, told CNN.

She said the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission has subpoenaed the club as part of a fact-finding investigation "and the legal advice was to try to get together with these camps."

"They should have done that before," Creative Steps Director Alethea Wright told CNN.

She said the "children are scarred" and questioned whether she should bring them back to the club but a lawyer for Wright told CNN the day camp would give the club's offer "due consideration."