Lawyer Who Moonlights as a Lifeguard Claims Speedos Requirement Is Age Bias
A bankruptcy lawyer who also worked as a Long Island lifeguard claims in an age discrimination suit that he was forced out of the second job because he wasn’t allowed to wear more modest swim jammers in a qualification test.
Roy Lester is 61 years old, and he dislikes Speedos—the only tight-fitting swimwear allowed in the lifeguard test at Jones Beach State Park. “There should be a law prohibiting anyone over the age of 50 from wearing a Speedo,” he told the New York Daily News.
New York State parks require lifeguards taking the test to wear briefs such as Speedos or one of two loose-fitting options—boxers or board shorts, report ABC News, CNN and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. Lester dislikes the park district’s loose-fitting options because they slow him down. He prefers swim jammers, which are tight and reach to the knee, rather than tight-fitting Speedos.
Lester lost his post as chief negotiator of the lifeguard union as well as his lifeguard job after refusing to don the required swimwear. (He now lifeguards at a private beach.) His first suit was tossed because the appeal was filed too late, ABC says. He sued again after he wasn’t allowed to take a new lifeguard test in his jammers.
An appeals court last week allowed Lester’s age bias suit to go forward. A spokesman for the New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation says it does not discriminate.
