PINE VALLEY - OCTOBER 1996: General view taken during a Pine Valley Golf Club photo shoot held in October 1996 at the Pine Valley Golf Club, in New Jersey. (David Cannon/Getty Images)
PINE VALLEY, N.J. - Acting Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced the filing of a civil rights complaint against the Pine Valley Golf Club.
On Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Matthew J Platkin announced the Division on Civil Rights (DCR) complaint alleging "a pattern of gender-based discrimination by the historically male-dominated club."
DCR is a state agency that aims to prevent, eliminate and find solutions for discrimination and bias-based harassment through the enforcement of New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination (LAD), Family Leave Act and Fair Chance in Housing Act.
The complaint alleges the club violated the Law Against Discrimination (LAD) by banning women from becoming members and restricting their ability to access club facilities and golf on the property.
The complaint also alleges the club used discriminatory practices to prevent women from owning homes on club land unless they co-own the house with a man and enforced employment policies that discriminated against employees on the basis of sex and gender.
"Gender-based discrimination has no place in New Jersey, period. Our Division of Civil Rights is committed to rooting out unlawful discrimination and holding accountable those who violate our laws," Platkin said.
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LAD prohibits discrimination and bias-based harassment, according to a release from Platkin's office. The complaint against the club alleges these crimes in the areas of employment, housing and places of public accommodation.
"New Jersey will not tolerate policies or practices that discriminate on the basis of gender, including those that perpetuate the effects of past discrimination," DCR Deputy Director Rosemary DiSavino said. "The LAD prohibits policies and practices that are intended to, or have the effect of excluding people who identify as women. Failure to provide equal access to persons of all genders in housing, employment and places of public accommodation has consequences."
The Pine Valley Golf Club says it has lifted all restrictions on membership and use of its facilities based on sex or gender as of spring 2021, according to Platkin's office, but the complaint alleges a history of discrimination since its creation more than 100 years ago.
Platkin's office says the club's female employees only make up 4% of the workforce with many of them working in positions of dishwasher, luncheonette staffer or laundry worker.
Additionally, the complaint includes other allegations, including, employment practices primarily based on word-of-mouth referrals from the club's mostly male workforce, an unlawful policy in the employee handbook that prohibits male employees and not female employees from wearing earrings and a policy that forbade employees from discussing their pay.