{"id":142,"date":"2026-10-25T16:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T06:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stop-the-rot.org\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2026-10-25T16:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T06:10:22","slug":"trump-did-not-win-1997-case-to-open-palm-beach-clubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stop-the-rot.org\/blog\/media-literacy\/trump-did-not-win-1997-case-to-open-palm-beach-clubs\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump did not win a 1997 court case so Black and Jewish people could join Palm Beach clubs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our reading:<\/strong> Misleading. Donald Trump did open Mar-a-Lago to Black and Jewish members at a time when most Palm Beach private clubs did not. He did that as a business decision, without needing a court order to admit them. The 1997 lawsuit was not a civil-rights crusade to desegregate Palm Beach clubs. It was Trump suing the town over operating restrictions on a club that was already open to anyone who could pay. That episode does not answer \u201cwhere is his racism,\u201d and it does not launder the rest of the record. Separately, the Facebook group that posted this is not Sky News Australia.<\/p>\n

The claim in the wild<\/h2>\n

A post in the public Facebook group Sky News Au<\/strong>, by Marlene Petrie, is at facebook.com\/groups\/6950638978305992\/permalink\/28771494235793819<\/a>. The screenshot is dated \u201cYesterday at 2:54 PM\u201d on 25 October 2026.<\/p>\n

The graphic says: \u201cIn 1997 Trump fought in court and won! so Black and Jewish people could enter and be members of clubs in Palm beach. Where is his racism? CNN will not tell you this truth! Any thoughts?\u201d There is no case name, docket, or year-by-year timeline. A black-and-white photo of Trump with Black guests sits under the text. At capture the post had 223 reactions, 61 comments and 59 shares.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook
Graphic posted in the Sky News Au Facebook group, captured 25 Oct 2026. Image: screenshot of the post<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Comments under it are not evidence. One comment treated the group as if it were Sky News (\u201cTrump’s Australian propaganda station\u201d). Others treated the graphic as a smear or as proof: \u201cLies!!!!\u201d; \u201cCNN is very bias We don’t trust them\u201d; \u201ctypical Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) comments.\u201d One asked about the Central Park Five. That is a different 1989 episode. This check is of the 1997 Palm Beach court claim and of whether the group is Sky News.<\/p>\n

A sample of comments, captured 25 Oct 2026. Commenter names omitted. Comments are not evidence.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Check: is this Sky News Australia?<\/h2>\n

No. Sky News Australia \u2014 now branded News24<\/strong> after a 27 July 2026 rebrand \u2014 is run by Australian News Channel Pty Ltd, a News Corp Australia company. Its official Facebook presence is a verified Page, historically facebook.com\/SkyNewsAustralia<\/a>, and the current Page facebook.com\/News24Au<\/a> (News24, a TV-channel Page with millions of followers, linking to news24.com.au).<\/p>\n

This is a public Group<\/em> named \u201cSky News Au,\u201d about 69,300 members, using a Sky News cover logo. Facebook Groups are not the same product as a news organisation\u2019s Page. The group\u2019s People tab lists four admins: the Page Best Motors<\/strong>, Anu Parnnani<\/strong>, the Page R News<\/strong> (\u201cTV channel\u201d), and Rosario Talavera<\/strong>. Moderators listed include Anil Anil, Ansari SahId, Manish Baba Manish Baba, Nirmal Singh, Sonu Chavan, Avani Shah, Shital Biradar and Loredana Bonomini. None of those accounts is the News Corp \/ Sky News Australia \/ News24 masthead.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook
Group People tab, captured 25 Oct 2026. Admins and moderators are not News Corp\u2019s Sky News Australia Page.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We found no evidence that News Corp runs this group. The logo, the name, and the \u201cAu\u201d are doing the work of making it look official. On the same rule as a retailer used as bait in a scam: treat Sky News \/ News24 as the victim of brand impersonation unless the company is shown to run the group. It is not shown to.<\/p>\n

Check: what was the Palm Beach court fight?<\/h2>\n

Two different legal fights get mashed into \u201c1997.\u201d<\/p>\n

1992\u201393, the club conversion.<\/strong> Trump bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985 and used it as a house. When the Town of Palm Beach rejected a plan to subdivide it, he sued the town in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Trump v. Town of Palm Beach<\/em>, No. 9:92-cv-08427, filed 20 July 1992, seeking tens of millions. The Miami Herald reported on 4 June 1993 that the council voted 4\u20131 to allow conversion to a private social club, with traffic and membership caps, and that Trump was withdrawing the lawsuit. The docket shows a stipulation of dismissal and an order dismissing the case with prejudice on 21 October 1993. The town and Trump signed a Declaration of Use Agreement that year. That settlement let him run a club. It did not order Palm Beach\u2019s other clubs to admit anyone.<\/p>\n

Lawyer Paul Rampell\u2019s advice, later reported by Laurence Leamer and Vanity Fair, was commercial: Palm Beach had a large Jewish population; four of five existing clubs excluded Jews and African Americans; the Palm Beach Country Club was the exception and was full. Open Mar-a-Lago to anyone who could pay the initiation fee (then about $50,000\u2013$100,000) and there is a market. The club opened in 1995. The Washington Post later wrote that it was the first Palm Beach club to accept African Americans and openly gay couples. That admissions policy did not require a court order. PolitiFact\u2019s 2020 check of a near-identical meme rated it Mostly False for that reason: he opened the club without having to go to court to do so.<\/p>\n

1996\u201397, the restrictions fight.<\/strong> The 1993 deal came with caps on members, daily arrivals, events and photography. In September 1996 Trump asked the council to loosen those rules. His lawyer sent council members copies of Gentleman\u2019s Agreement<\/em> and Guess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner<\/em>. The council dropped only a few conditions. In December 1996, after it refused the rest, Trump sued in federal court in Palm Beach alleging the town was discriminating against Mar-a-Lago in part because the club was open to Jews and African Americans, and sought $100 million. The town said it was zoning, traffic and a quiet street. The Wall Street Journal reported that suit as pending on 30 April 1997 \u2014 which is why \u201c1997\u201d appears on memes.<\/p>\n

That 1997 filing is the opposite of the graphic\u2019s cause-and-effect. Membership of Black and Jewish people was not the thing the court was being asked to create. It was already happening at Mar-a-Lago. Trump used it as leverage to loosen limits on his own club. Abraham Foxman of the ADL, quoted in that Journal piece, was pleased the exclusion at older clubs was being talked about (\u201cHe put the light on Palm Beach\u201d) and, in the same reporting, concerned that Trump was using the charge of antisemitism for mercantile ends. Both can be in the record. The Bath and Tennis Club and the Everglades Club were not ordered by a judge to integrate. Locals told the Journal some older clubs had begun to admit Jewish patrons under public pressure, not under a 1997 decree opening \u201cclubs in Palm Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did he \u201cwin\u201d? The documented court disposition in this saga is the 1993 dismissal with prejudice after settlement. For the later restrictions, then-council member Jack McDonald told the Washington Post Trump \u201cwon in the court of public opinion,\u201d and that most of the town\u2019s limits were later lifted. That is politics and bargaining, not a 1997 judgment that Black and Jewish people could at last enter Palm Beach clubs.<\/p>\n

Check: does this answer \u201cwhere is his racism\u201d?<\/h2>\n

No. A private club\u2019s 1995 guest list is not a verdict on a person, and it is not a shield. The graphic uses one business decision as a full acquittal and a stick to hit CNN with. The Wall Street Journal printed the Palm Beach club fight in 1997. The Washington Post, Vanity Fair and PolitiFact have printed it since. \u201cCNN will not tell you this truth\u201d is engagement bait, not a source.<\/p>\n

If the question is meant as \u201chas any U.S. court file ever alleged racial discrimination,\u201d the documented federal case is United States v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump, and Trump Management, Inc.<\/em>, No. 73 C 1529 (E.D.N.Y.), a Fair Housing Act suit filed 15 October 1973. It ended on 10 June 1975 in a consent order: no trial on the merits, no admission of liability, the personal claims dismissed with prejudice, and Trump Management permanently enjoined from a list of discriminatory housing practices plus a two-year affirmative program. That is not a criminal conviction. The 1997 club fight is not an acquittal of that file, or of anything else. This check does not pile on later political controversies. It refuses the graphic\u2019s swap: one club policy in exchange for a lifetime stamp.<\/p>\n

What is true<\/h2>\n

Most of Palm Beach\u2019s old-line clubs in the 1990s excluded Jews and African Americans. Mar-a-Lago did not, once it was a paid club. That mattered on the island, and ADL noted the light it put on the older clubs. Trump\u2019s own lawyer sold it as a market. The town fights were about whether a landmark house could become a high-traffic club, then about how loud and large that club could be. The 1997 suit assumed Black and Jewish membership already existed and tried to turn it into damages against the town.<\/p>\n

None of that requires a fake Sky News group, a missing case caption, or a \u201cwhere is his racism?\u201d punchline. This check is of the graphic and the group. It is not a brief for or against Trump, CNN, or Sky News\u2019s journalism.<\/p>\n

What to do<\/h2>\n