Deaf Lifeguard’s Lawsuit Accuses YMCA of Bias in Revoking Certificate

BOSTON —  Sandy-haired and square-jawed, 32-year-old David Schultz has spent much of his life in, on and around the water.

An accomplished competitive swimmer who sails, swims and dives for fun, Schultz also has made the water his career. He has been a lifeguard since 1979, holding advanced certifications from the Red Cross and the YMCA. He has handled several lifesaving rescues and has never lost a swimmer in his care. He even trains lifeguards.

David Schultz also is deaf, a fact that has brought him reluctantly to federal court here, where he has filed a $20-million lawsuit against one of the nation’s best-known institutions--the YMCA. He charges that the Y stripped him of his lifeguard certification just because he is deaf.

In a case of unintended consequences, much of the blame for Schultz’s predicament arises from the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, a broadly drafted attempt to create opportunities for people like Schultz.

Although Schultz still works for the YMCA’s Hockomock branch in North Attleboro in southeastern Massachusetts, he is angry that the national YMCA decertified him without taking the time to observe his abilities.

“They chose to prejudge my capabilities rather than fairly judge them. That is what prejudice is all about,” Schultz said. “It has dehumanized me to have my ability to save lives as a lifeguard prejudged by people who have never met me. That is why I am taking this legal action.”

At the Chicago headquarters of the national YMCA, officials say they are trying to ensure safety at the thousands of YMCA pools and camps nationwide.

“This is a situation where the Y had a choice to make between the safety of the people in its pools and the desire of an individual to be a lifeguard,” said spokesman Steve Hockensmith. “The Y opted to stick with its rules to ensure the safety of those people in the pools. It’s unfortunate that it has come to this.”

The YMCA, which certified more than 13,000 lifeguards last year, rewrote its training manual in 1994 in response to the disabilities law, Hockensmith said.

“One of stipulations of [the act] is that for certain kinds of jobs, you have to be very specific about the kinds of abilities people have to have to carry out those jobs,” the YMCA spokesman added.

In reviewing its lifeguard requirements, the YMCA stated that lifeguard candidates needed--among other things--to “hear noises and distress signals.” That provision had never been required before.

But Schultz and many advocates for the hearing-impaired say deafness is not an impediment to safe lifeguarding. Indeed, they argue that deafness can be an asset.

Deaf lifeguards, because of their deafness, have developed a “visual alertness” that is usually greater than that of hearing people, Schultz said. He added that deaf lifeguards are not distracted by false cries for help or by people stopping by the lifeguard chair to chat, flirt, ask directions and the like.

He conceded that in some cases, deafness could be a problem for a lifeguard--for example, at an ocean beach where whistles or radios are used to coordinate rescues in the surf. Schultz can hear some sounds when using a hearing aid, but the aid cannot get wet, so he cannot wear it while on lifeguard duty.

Some legal observers believe that Schultz’s case probably will hinge on how the federal court weighs the facts of his specific abilities and disabilities, as they relate to the practicalities of the task.

“There’s certainly an arguable claim. The bottom line will be whether he can do the job safely,” said Harvard Law School Prof. Elizabeth Bartholet, who teaches about employment discrimination. She said there is so little case law under the disabilities act that each court case helps define the law.

“I would say that under the law, there is a real push to individualize so that arguments like that can come out,” Bartholet said. “But there is also deference to the principle that if the employer can show that safety is involved, it will win.”

In many ways, Schultz is a model plaintiff.

Born in Illinois, he was reared in Minnesota, where his father is a vice president at Tonka Corp., the toy manufacturer. He was deaf at birth and is considered “profoundly deaf.”

He attended mainstream public schools near Minnetonka, then went to the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York before earning a degree in 1988 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in recreation administration. Schultz also earned a master’s degree in education in 1994 from Boston University.

Since college, Schultz has worked in aquatics, first as a youth director for the National Assn. of the Deaf, then as aquatics director for the Boys and Girls Club of Billerica, Mass. Since 1993, he has worked at the Hockomock YMCA as aquatics director, which involves turns as lifeguard.

In April, Schultz needed to communicate with the YMCA’s national program coordinator, Mary Zoller, in Kenner, La. He used a device called a “relay service,” a sort of telephone for the hearing-impaired. Zoller demanded that the local YMCA furnish proof that Schultz could hear.

YMCA officials in Massachusetts responded by chiding the national office for not being more committed to helping staffers such as Schultz “reach their full potential.” But without proof of hearing, Zoller insisted on nullifying Schultz’s certification as a lifeguard.

Schultz’s attorney, Alan Rich of New York, said that amounted to discrimination. “The Y made a conscious decision to choose ignorance over enlightenment. That is certainly unforgivable,” Rich said.

With more than 2,000 facilities nationwide and an annual budget approaching $2 billion, the YMCA calls itself the largest nonprofit community service organization in America, serving 13.8 million adults and children. Its mission is to “put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy body, mind and spirit for all.”