I am the director of membership for a paralegal association. We received an application from a felon convicted for sexual assault on a child. We have concerns about accepting his membership as our association has events where paralegal mothers sometimes bring their children. As a nonprofit association, are we legally bound to accept his membership request? —From the Website.
Probably not. Private nonprofit associations are normally not required to be open to everyone and can apply their own membership criteria. Even if the association were to be subject to public accommodations law and prohibited from discriminating against protected classes of people, sex offender is not a protected class.
Another question may be whether there is sufficient need to reject this individual. Do you know how long ago the offense occurred? Do you know how the offender has conducted himself since then? If he is a paralegal today, he has apparently passed someone else’s screening test. As a matter of fairness, have you admitted anyone else with a criminal conviction, or checked to see that no one else who applies has a record?
What is the real risk to your organization and your members? You are not a summer camp for kids seeking to hire a counselor who will have unsupervised time with the campers. Your members are all adults who are likely to pay attention to their kids at your events, and you can take steps to assure that he is not left alone with children at such times.
A sex offender is not precluded from participating in life after serving his sentence. He is not precluded from going anywhere there might be children. Would you be undercutting his effort to be a useful member of society if you denied him admission?
If you did admit him, would your bylaws permit you to remove or suspend his membership privileges relatively easily if he causes a problem? If not, even though it would be discriminatory in its own way, would you be able to work with him on a form of conditional membership that would require him to resign if there is a problem? Or put him on a committee or two for a while before admitting him to membership if you want to satisfy yourselves that he is not a threat?
The ultimate decision is yours, of course. I would be reluctant to make it simply because of his label, however, without a more thorough investigation of the situation.
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