January 2015 - Parks & Recreation - 30

L AW R E V I E W

The policies also required that team
captains be Fremont residents.
While Jefferson disputed the motivation for the revision of the guidelines, testimony from other players
from Jefferson's USTA League team
as well as former employees of the
FTC failed to indicate that the conflicts between Gonce and Jefferson
were prompted by racially-motivated
harassment and discrimination. On
the contrary, as one witness testified,
" The reason for Gonce's attitude was
that Gonce and Jefferson 'were two
guys that didn't like each other.' "
Jefferson claimed Gonce had engaged in racially-motivated discrimination against him in recreation and
USTA league use of the courts. In
response, the city claimed Jefferson's
failure to follow the rules were the
" true cause of any conflict that he
may have experienced at the FTC. "
Specifically, the city produced a documented history of Jefferson not paying on time and following the rules
regarding timely court reservations
for league play. In the opinion of the
city, if allowed, " Jefferson's infractions would affect general customer
service and revenues. "
Jefferson himself testified that he
could not recall having any issue booking recreational play at the FTC. Moreover, Jefferson failed to show that he
did not violate the FTC's rules on the
occasions referenced by the city.
Full and Equal Enjoyment
As cited by the federal district court,
" Section 1983 provides a cause of action for the deprivation of any rights,
privileges or immunities secured by
the Constitution and laws by any person acting under color of any statute,
ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, or any State or Territory. " Further, federal civil rights law provides,
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" [A]ll persons shall be entitled to the
full and equal enjoyment of the goods,
services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations of any place
of public accommodation...without
discrimination or segregation on the
ground of race, color, religion or national origin " (42 U.S.C. § 2000a).
In his complaint, Jefferson essentially
contended that he was " treated poorly
at the FTC, a place of public accommodation, and ultimately denied the right
to use the FTC because of his race. "
According to the federal district
court, Sections 1983 of the federal
civil rights laws would require Jefferson to " show that any purported
racial discrimination was intentional. " On the other hand, the court
acknowledged that " gross statistical
disparities " regarding the adverse impact of a law (in this case the FTC
residency requirement) on a racial
group " may be so extreme that courts
invalidate the challenged action
based on discriminatory impact " as a
denial of equal protection.
However, in this particular instance, the federal district court found
that Jefferson had " not established
that the residency requirements had
a discriminatory impact on a protected class, " i.e., African-Americans.
Specifically, the court noted teammates of Jefferson had failed to offer
any testimony that supported his allegations of racial discrimination. In
particular, there was no evidence that
" Jefferson and his multicultural team
were not welcome at the FTC " or
that the FTC's residency policy was
designed to " rid the facility of minorities. " On the contrary, the court
noted the following testimony from
one of Jefferson's teammates:
" Obviously, there [are] a lot of people that play at the tennis center that
come from different backgrounds: Af-

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rican-Americans, Filipinos, Chinese,
Indians. We also have Latinos that
come out and play there, but again,
there's no sort of...special kind of
treatment for certain groups of people
or...anything that may be related to
racism. I never witnessed any of that. "
Further, the court found " no disparate impact stemming from the
residency requirements " for USTA
league play on any racial group. In
particular, the court noted that the
residency rules favoring teams with
more Fremont residents had also
excluded two non-Fremont resident
captains who were Caucasian.
As a result, the federal district court
concluded that Jefferson had failed to
establish any race-based disparate impact associated with the residency rules.
Disparate Treatment?
As described by the federal district
court, to establish a federal civil rights
claim under Section 1981, Jefferson had
to show the following to prove " disparate treatment motivated by race: "
(1) is a member of a protected class;
(2) attempted to contract for services and afford himself the full
benefits and enjoyment of a public
accommodation;
(3) was denied the full benefits or
enjoyment of a public accommodation; and that
(4) such services were available to
similarly situated persons outside his
protected class who received full benefits.
In this particular instance, the court
found Jefferson was only prevented
from getting on a court to begin play
in June 2011, not because of the residency requirements, but based on the
fact that " Jefferson did not make a
timely request for reservation. " More
significantly, the court found Jefferson had failed to offer any evidence
that " similarly-situated persons out-

January 2015 - Parks & Recreation

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