In case you sometimes wonder just how important is the board chair or other officers, a recent settlement by the New York State Attorney General provides a modicum of understanding.
In a case where the State of New York called to question racist housing rental and purchase practices by a "nazi" german community, part of the settlement includes "replacing "the League's" president and treasurer". See, volunteer leadership can matter particularly when the source of "doing harm" is identified. I would pose that if not behind the racist core values, the remainder of the board must be at minimum, complicit in permitting the practices to continue.
Kudos to the NY AG with wonderment about where was the IRS in not at least joining with NY to address this flagrant abuse of tax exempt status.
Here's the full Wall Street Journal article:
New York Reaches Settlement With Nazi-Linked Community on Long Island
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office says German American Settlement League practiced racially biased housing practices
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office said Wednesday it had settled with the German American Settlement League in Yaphank, Long Island, over what prosecutors called racially discriminatory housing practices.
The League’s 40-acre community, a former Nazi summer camp called Siegfried Park, had only allowed people of “German extraction” to own homes or be members. The group maintained these practices by leasing land to its members and prohibiting public listings of home sales, according to court documents.
“The [League’s] discriminatory practices were a remnant of a disgraceful past that has no place in New York or anywhere,” said Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat. The attorney general’s office said the settlement resolves its investigation into the group.
An attorney representing the League didn’t respond to requests for comment. The group’s executive director couldn’t be reached for comment but has previously said the League had moved on from its racist past and its rules had been misunderstood.
Under the terms of the settlement, the League didn’t admit fault. It agreed to replace its president and treasurer and regularly report to the attorney general’s office, among other requirements.
In 2015, a married couple and a Long Island housing nonprofit sued the League, claiming its housing policies were against the law. The couple, who are white and of German ancestry, had been unsuccessful in selling their Siegfried Park home for at least six years because of the League’s “racially restrictive policies,” the suit alleged.
The League settled that lawsuit last year under an agreement that required it to make changes to its bylaws, according to court documents.
Mr. Schneiderman’s office said its investigation found these changes weren’t enough. Membership and housing sales in the community were still “unreasonably difficult,” particularly for people who weren’t white or German, prosecutors said.
In the late 1930s, German Americans traveled to Yaphank for Nazi rallies, according to the 2015 federal lawsuit. Siegfried Park was used as a summer camp beginning in 1935 and then transferred to the League in 1937. The camp had Nazi flags, pictures of Adolf Hitler and a swastika-shaped garden, court documents say.
The subdivision had street names like Hindenburg Street, Adolf Hitler Street and German Boulevard, according to the suit. Its constitution, dated 1998, says one of the purposes of the League is to “introduce, cultivate and propagate in every direction true Germanic culture and to cultivate the German language, customs and ideals.”
The 2015 lawsuit said a modified Hitler Youth emblem still sits on top of a flagpole that flies a German flag in the League’s clubhouse. All homeowners in Siegfried Park are and have always been white, according to the suit. It wasn’t clear if the Hitler Youth emblem or race of homeowners had changed since 2015.