Straight from the head-smack file comes the story of a woman who really sees nothing wrong with hanging a sign near the public pool she owns declaring it "white only." Jezebel points us to a CNN story about this landlord who challenged a decision by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission that the sign was racist and unconstitutional (obvious!). As a follow-up, the Associated Press reports that the commission on Thursday stuck to its decision prohibiting her from hanging the sign (of course!). So why in the world would this landlord think her little segregation-era throwback was at all ok in the first place? Her argument is that the girl whose parents brought the case before the commission used a product in her hair that made the pool water cloudy. So, naturally, she banned all people of color from the pool (face-palm).

The commission's decision that posting the sign "restricts the social interaction between Caucasians and African-Americans and reinforces discriminatory actions aimed at oppressing people of color" is obvious. But what's odd is the weak enforcement that opinion comes with. Sounds like none at all, at least until it gets a judge to verify things. AP reports: "The case is to be referred to the Ohio attorney general's office, which would represent the commission's findings before an administrative law judge. That judge would determine any penalties, which could include a cease-and-desist order and punitive damages." Or maybe this woman could just stop being a bigot and drop the whole segregation sign thing, as there's no way she's going to win this. But maybe that would be too easy.

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Adam Martin