To the House bank, lavish perks and CEO pay, add membership in restrictive clubs - another log on the fire of current public resentment over the plums of incumbency and executive status. Like Perot, other business and political leaders are now learning that while rank has its privileges, it also carries penalties. Earlier this year Bill Clinton apologized for golfing at The Country Club of Little Rock, Ark., which has no minority members. In 1990, Vice President Dan Quayle angered black leaders by playing once at the all-white Cypress Point golf club in Pebble Beach, Calif. He cut that visit short, but still regularly golfs at Washington’s men-only Burning Tree Country Club. Even those with peerless civil-rights credentials find themselves facing charges of hypocrisy: the Rev. Billy Graham, a longtime foe of racism, recently came under attack for his decades-old membership in the all-white Biltmore Forest club near his hometown of Montreat, N.C.
Technically, most of these clubs aren’t guilty of illegal discrimination. In 1988, the Supreme Court upheld laws that forbid exclusive-membership policies at private clubs where business is conducted. But the decision left questions about admissions at social and sports clubs unresolved. Many old-line clubs have since opened their membership rolls to a few women and minorities. Others, arguing that members have a right to choose their own companions, elected to circumvent the ruling by placing an official ban on business discussions. Some clubs, such as Biltmore Forest and Little Rock, offer careful disclaimers about their membership rules. “There is nothing in our bylaws or constitution that discriminates on the basis of race, creed, national origin or gender,” says Little Rock chairman Jack Williams.
Civil-rights activists and women’s groups complain that official “open” admission policies, like stated club moratoriums on business deals, are a fig leaf. Memberships hinge on chummy recommendations, they say, and the tacit understanding is that minorities and women will be blackballed.
Establishment Washington remains a bastion of clubby exclusivity. George Bush, congressional leaders, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices-a Who’s Who of D.C. power brokers-play and dine at such local male-only enclaves as Burning Tree and the Alibi Club. The wheezy frat-boy antics of politicos at the annual Alfalfa Club dinner always draw wink-and-grin press coverage, to the annoyance of many female officials. " I find it so offensive," says Dr. Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health. “If they were excluding blacks, it would be front-page news, not a joke.”
And if some in public life sense that voters don’t approve of exclusive clubs, they aren’t beyond trying to have it both ways. Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen withdrew in 1988 from Houston’s River Oaks Country Club - which only recently accepted its first black member - when he was tapped as Michael Dukakis’s running mate. In 1989, the election over and lost, Bentsen rejoined the club. To critics, leaving a club under pressure hardly exempts public figures from blame. “[Anyone] who has been willing to join a restrictive club in the first place implicitly supports its objectives,” says Norma Blumenfeld, an official with New York state’s Women’s Bar Association. “The stigma isn’t erased by resignation.” Amid this year’s reformist fervor, many public leaders may find that playing par for the course can be a losing game.
