A 61-year-old New York man claims in a new lawsuit that he was fired from his part-time job as a lifeguard for refusing to wear the required Speedo-style swim trunks for a yearly swim test. Roy Lester, who is a bankruptcy attorney when not lifeguarding, alleges that the requirement is evidence of age discrimination because it is intended to get rid of older lifeguards.
"I wore a Speedo when I was in my 20s," Lester told the Daily News, "but come on. There should be a law prohibiting anyone over the age of 50 from wearing a Speedo."
I agree with that except I would delete the words "over the age of 50."
Lester prefers to wear bike shorts, which are creepy enough but far below Speedos on the creep scale. This is not someone who should not be seen on the beach at all - he's described as an "accomplished triathlete" - but he still objects to the Speedo requirement. He says other shorts-wearing lifeguards caved at the time of the test in 2007 and put on the eye-searing scarf-like garment, but he refused, and allegedly was fired for doing so. His lawsuit was dismissed but an appellate court reinstated it last week.
As of Friday morning, in a poll at the Daily News site almost 90 percent of respondents said that Lester should not be forced to wear a Speedo "if it doesn't prevent him from performing his duties." I think this really just shows that at least 10 percent of people are going to vote contrarily no matter what the issue is.
