"June 22, 2021 at 6:04 p.m. GMT+1
Update: Whitehouse released a statement Wednesday saying he had been caught off-guard by the reporter and shouldn’t have accepted her premise that beach club was all-White: “I was attending an unrelated event and wasn’t prepared for the question. At the time, I made the mistake of accepting her premise. I then checked the assertion and was assured that, first, the assertion was wrong, there is diversity in the membership and there are non-White club members; and second, that improving diversity remains a priority and an active task for the club’s new board.”
Whitehouse said he is not personally a member of the club and wouldn’t urge his family members to leave it, because those are their decisions. He also addressed a sailing club which he belongs to which he said “does lack diversity." “Failing to address the sailing club’s lack of diversity is squarely on me, and something for which I am sorry," he said.
The beach club also broke its silence Wednesday, issuing a statement saying, “Recent characterizations in the press and in other commentary about Bailey’s Beach Club are inaccurate and false. Over many years, club members and their families have included people of many racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds from around the world who come to Newport every summer.”
-THE WASHINGTON POST
