365: MemberVetting, Inclusivity, & Non-Discrimination in Private Clubs w/ Paul Dank
Jul 12, 2024
Denny Corby,Paul Dank
Join us as we sit down with Paul Dank from MemberVetting.com to uncover the crucial balance between maintaining high standards and ensuring a welcoming, inclusive environment for all members. We'll demystify common fears surrounding stringent vetting practices and clarify how transparency and fairness can help clubs avoid potential legal issues while fostering a secure community.
Paul Dank shares valuable insights into how clubs can articulate their reasons for member denial without crossing the line into discriminatory practices. We'll explore real-world cases, such as the Crumbley trials, to illustrate the necessity of understanding a potential member's character in protecting the club's reputation. This discussion is indispensable for anyone involved in the governance and management of private clubs, as it underscores the importance of aligning new members with the club's decorum policies, ensuring both legal safety and a positive environment for everyone.
Join us as we sit down with Paul Dank from MemberVetting.com to uncover the crucial balance between maintaining high standards and ensuring a welcoming, inclusive environment for all members. We'll demystify common fears surrounding stringent vetting practices and clarify how transparency and fairness can help clubs avoid potential legal issues while fostering a secure community.
Paul Dank shares valuable insights into how clubs can articulate their reasons for member denial without crossing the line into discriminatory practices. We'll explore real-world cases, such as the Crumbley trials, to illustrate the necessity of understanding a potential member's character in protecting the club's reputation. This discussion is indispensable for anyone involved in the governance and management of private clubs, as it underscores the importance of aligning new members with the club's decorum policies, ensuring both legal safety and a positive environment for everyone.
The club has the right to say no. We did gauge you on that and we decided that that isn't demonstrative of how we would act at the club. Or if there's things that you find in someone's background that show that they're not going to fit within your decorum policy, right, they're going to violate that code right away. They've demonstrated it and you just don't feel it's the right time. There's usually that confusion where they say maybe this is about my class status and not about me, so being able to demonstrate to them and explain to them why they weren't allowed in goes a long way. So I don't think it happens often, but here's the thing it's pretty upsetting.
Speaker 2:
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Private Club Radio Show where people come to learn all about the ins and outs of the world of private golf and country clubs, from people who are brand new to the industry, complete outsiders to industry professionals and veterans. We go over any and all the topics, ranging from marketing, branding, food and beverage, governance, hospitality, leadership, management, you name it. We got it. Thank you all for being here. I'm your host, denny Corby. Welcome to the show In this episode, sitting down again with a show partner and friend and all around good person, paul Dank, from over at membervetting membervettingcom the choice the people to go to when it comes to fact-based member vetting and background checks and research and making sure the right people and members are getting into your club.
Speaker 2:
And he and I were talking and just I thought a lot more clubs did vetting or I should say more in-depth vetting. I think it's super important because we're letting people outsiders into a club, into our environment, and I think they should be vetted a little bit more than just the average little background checks. There should be some more detail that goes into it. And Paul and I were talking and he told me that one of the main reasons that people clubs are sometimes a little bit hesitant to more in-depth fact-based member vetting is because they're afraid of discrimination. They're afraid of getting sued and discriminatory I can't talk today, but they're afraid of lawsuits. They're afraid of discrimination lawsuits. They're afraid of getting in trouble for discriminating against people coming into their clubs.
Speaker 2:
We talk about the balance between fact-based vetting and legal safeguards. Where is that line? How does it work in a private golf and country clubs and having equal treatment for all applicants and why transparency and fairness can all mitigate legal risks when it comes to the vetting process? And really all of this is kind of just shedding light on the misconceptions that you know stringent vetting increases lawsuits and risks, but what it really boils down to is that the only risk is actual discrimination, which is what we're not doing.
Speaker 2:
So anyway, and before we go on, I shouldn't mention that, if you are interested in a little bit more about member vetting, maybe what the Kenis approach is and how it, how it differs and cause they have a bunch of different levels and layers to how deep that they go to get and find information. There's so many different layers and packages that they have. So if you are interested, head on over to membervettingcom and set up a call with Paul Dank. Super nice guy, great fun conversation you're going to have and all about how you can protect your club and members a little bit more. On that note, let's welcome Paul Dank.
Speaker 1:
Sometimes, when I'm pitching a club, they come out with the theory that if they start using fact-based vetting and saying no based on things that they normally wouldn't know about, that opens them up to discrimination lawsuits. Right, that increases the risk that they're going to get sued, and it's a small thing. But using facts and having standards is different than discriminating. In order to get sued for discrimination, you, number one, have to be dealing with someone that fits into a protected class, right? So that first thing's first. So if you have an applicant that doesn't fit into that, it's very unlikely they're going to be able to come at you, no matter how unhappy they are with your decision, and say that you weren't allowed in because you were discriminated against. Having standards and saying irrespective of who you are in terms of whether or not you fit into a protected class or you don't, we treat everyone on the entry decision the same and we can articulate how we do that.
Speaker 1:
And when we said no, we can articulate why we said no. And so you don't have a right. You have a right not to be discriminated against, but you don't have a right to be allowed access to a club. Obviously, anything I'm talking about you should talk to an attorney about. But the concept of using facts in the vetting, somehow increasing the risk when you're dealing with someone that fits in a protected class being sued for discrimination, it doesn't make any difference. Use whatever your standard is going to be. If there's someone in a protected class who comes to your club for their interview and is caustic to the doorman and belittling to the coat check person and shows you their true behaviors, you're not going to let them in, irrespective of whatever their protected class is.
Speaker 1:
Clubs somehow or sometimes feel like that's a very understandable, objective thing that I can take action on. But if I go out and I fact check their application and I find that they lied to us or misled us or that they engage in behaviors that don't work here, right, and that they don't fit our standard, our colorblind standard, right? You know the symbol of justice. She's blindfolded with her scale. If they don't fit and I can show you why and I use the same standard and would say no to the very next person, irrespective of who they are and if they're in a protected class, it doesn't add any more. It doesn't add any more volition to the idea that someone's going to file a suit against you, but it seems to come up. It's almost this natural reaction and I think maybe it's an idea of hey, if we're vetting a little more stringently than we had been, we're going to draw that in.
Speaker 1:
I guess from a numbers perspective, maybe you could. But I keep going back to and the people that I know that engage us to do this. They say the same things you have to actually discriminate to get in trouble for discrimination. Now, yes, anybody can sue anybody, but unless there was a secondary secret reason and you're being extra stringent or extra weird with this person because of their protected class status, it doesn't make any difference, but clubs seem to worry about it. So it's kind of an interesting byproduct of using facts. In fact, it's the only time when I've ever heard anybody say you know what, if we start using more facts, we're really going to get in trouble here. Let's keep it subjective, and that's been interesting to me, those conversations.
Speaker 2:
How many clubs have get sued for discrimination? I think that's the other thing is like. Is that a common? I haven't really heard it. I mean, I know it's out there, but is it a common thing that happens? Or are they just even worried at the hint that someone might for call them out for even potentially discriminating?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So litigation has you know that tipping point where you actually file a suit, right? There's a lot of people that go out and retain lawyers and contact people and say you know, we have a formal dispute with you, we can start to negotiate and talk about this and you can make my client whole right now, or we can do it in court. I work for a number of lawyers who the first thing they'll do is they'll send the complaint over and say this is what I'm prepared to file. Would you like to talk or would you like me to file and we can spend the time in court. And so I don't know that there's a good metric on how many that anybody's even tracking how often it happens. I don't think it happens very frequently. I also think that there's probably more frequency of people saying I feel like I was mistreated because they misunderstood the circumstances. Right, I wasn't allowed in the club, I'm in a protected class, so I'm making an assumption. It's about my lifestyle, it's about my race, it's about right, something that puts me in that protected class, and it's not about the fact that I'm not a good fit or that the club has a requirement and somehow I failed them and somehow I failed them. So anybody can make an argument to say I didn't mistreat the valet and I didn't mistreat the Kocek person and I feel like my behavior was wonderful and you should allow me in the club has the right to say, no, I don't. We did gauge you on that and we decided that that isn't demonstrative of how we would act at the club. Or if there's things that you find in someone's background that show that they're not going to fit within your decorum policy, right, they're going to violate that code right away. They've demonstrated it and you just don't feel it's the right time. There's usually that confusion where they say maybe this is about my class status and not about me. So being able to demonstrate to them and explain to them why they weren't allowed in goes a long way. So I don't think it happens often. But here's the thing. It's pretty upsetting Clubs.
Speaker 1:
For a long time you know you go back to the 80s and 90s there were still clubs that didn't allow women in. So the club world was one of because you're allowed to pick and choose who you wish to associate with. Constitution guarantees it. Because of that, I think it was one of the last adopters to say, hey, we should really be following all the regulations, even the ones that we could make an argument don't apply to us Things like the Fair Housing Act, things like the Fair Credit Reporting Act and, to a much greater degree right, the Civil Rights Act, americans with Disabilities Act. So there was probably times where clubs weren't very willing to follow those acts and said we're going to discriminate and use whatever judgment we want to. I don't think you have to go too far back in history to see that.
Speaker 1:
The point is, I think almost every club that I've dealt with very much is not caught up in a world where they don't want to be diverse and they don't want to have members from all segments of society. They're very open to it. In fact, I've had many a conversation where they said I wish we had a more diverse selection of people applying for membership in the club. We're excited about it. It's the exact opposite of wanting to discriminate Doesn't mean that club doesn't have a culture.
Speaker 1:
You know you and I were at the NCAA conference. Most of that conference was about culture and fit, and it's not just culture within staff. A large portion of it was aimed at the membership and I think NCAA did a great job and had some great speakers who articulated what it takes to build a culture. If you have people that don't fit in the culture, how are you going to build a good culture? So saying no isn't necessarily bad and you don't take on more risk just because you might be saying no to someone that does fit into a protected class, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:
So I don't think it's popular, but it's also an awful stigma to be labeled that way. If you didn't discriminate and you're accused of it, it really seems crappy. So I think clubs want to go a long way from staying away from that. The other thing is the media is terrible about this stuff, so these are infrequent. But when they do find out that a club was sued for discrimination, they're going to feature it on the news. Now if an accounting firm down the road, a landscaping company, a laundromat, any other business gets sued for discrimination, no one notices and no one cares. Clubs right, it's those people up on the mountain. That's how they behave and they're awful. And Joey Lunchpail the average person thinks that's interesting news. So I understand the strong desire to stay away from ever having that label put on you, but adding facts certainly doesn't increase the liability if anything, it should probably save you right.
Speaker 2:
I mean to, if someone says like I mean if someone comes after you and says hey, I'm, you know for like discrimination, I I mean I would feel happy going. Oh, no, no, no, no, look, we use kennis, we did all, we checked all the facts. You're just wrong. Like you're just not a good fit. Like you did x, y and z, this is not a good fit. Like to me that's like a lifeline.
Speaker 1:
Well, it certainly. It certainly can be. I mean, you know the facts that are presented aren't necessarily going to be the reasons you're going to say no. If you were rude to the staff or if a member knows about something that you're engaged in that they find that isn't representative of the club's culture, those are really good reasons and really likely reasons you're not going to get in and that you're determined not to be a good fit.
Speaker 1:
I think it's very easy for clubs to defend themselves. I think it's just a sensitive topic. I don't know whether that's because the club world in general I'm not speaking to any specific club was a little bit slower to embrace those things. Truly, private clubs do have the right to discriminate. I mean they do. That could actually be a standard. I haven't met a single club that has any desire to come within a thousand miles of the idea of discriminating to benefit a subclass of society that doesn't want people around. I don't think I really haven't met anybody that I felt even slightly was interested in that, whether that club is, you know, in the north, the south, the east or the west, and I think people are very sensitive to it. So it's just an interesting thing because it comes up in pretty much every other conversation I have with a new club is well, you know how do we deal with and I said you got to describe, I think you got to actually discriminate, to get in trouble for discriminating. So interesting sidebar to what I do.
Speaker 2:
No, yeah, that that and you and I talked about this a few weeks ago and not that I, I think it just finally clicked a little bit more about kennis and member vetting and the importance and the in the need is, uh, you, you talked about it once and, uh, me and my wife were watching, uh, things like the crumbly trials. I was about a school shooter.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, in, um, yeah here in michigan, yeah, here in michigan, michigan, and it was one of the first cases where they went after the parents for, I think, homicidal negligence.
Speaker 2:
I forget the exact term, but in my head it was that moment, even though you've told me, and it just clicked, because it goes when it hits the fan the if, if, if, who, what, where, when, why, the media, they're all gonna dig and research and find any little thing they can to help their cause and do anything.
Speaker 2:
So of course, as a club you should do as much as you can to help and save yourself. Like that, just like it, just because they just go after everybody. So if anything happens, they're gonna start digging around like well, why were they even allowed it in the first place in this? And you know the club did x, y, and start digging around like, well, why were they even allowed in the first place in this? And you know the club did X, y and Z. It's like, oh well, of course, if you use someone like Ken, at least you have some sort of like hey, we did our best, we did, we have the best package, we made sure we hire or we, you know, we allow in the best people that we can no-transcript, don't go through that stuff.
Speaker 1:
but it's also not uncommon. I mean, these things happen. The club world is a microcosm of society. It doesn't mean it's immune from all the things that impact society. We hope so, but yeah, I think you're absolutely right that looking for those things that have predictive value and you can do that absolutely blindfolded.
Speaker 1:
If there's somebody that it doesn't matter who they are, it doesn't matter if they fit into any protected class. If you're spreading hate speech and it seems maniacal and you're doing it through a ghost account or ghost accounts that you set up, I think that speaks a lot about your character and frankly, as a club member myself, I don't really care what the context is. If that was an attempt at humor, that's the kind of humor that's not appreciated here. I don't want to be around somebody that's doing things like that. So, no matter how you try and portray those things, those things are gender, race, disability, blind. Those are just acts of people that don't fit in the club period or have behaviors that we think are outright dangerous, and the good news is you don't have to associate with them.
Speaker 2:
Hope you all enjoyed that episode. I know I always enjoy learning more about the member vetting process and what goes into it in the backgrounds. So if you're interested in learning a little bit more about the Kenneth's approach and how to maybe step up your vetting game at your club, your member process, head on over to membervettingcom. Set up a confidential call with Paul Dank, guaranteed it's going to be a great conversation. If you are enjoying the content, enjoying the episodes, a like, share, subscribe is one of the best ways you can support the channel as well as supporting all of our show partners. That's all we ask. A little bit of help and it means the world. That's this episode. Until next time, catch you on the flippity flip.
