Fox News Promises To Continue Lying About Phoenix Lifeguard Diversity Program

During a tease for Fox & Friends Saturday, Fox News hosts Alisyn Camerota and Clayton Morris perpetuated mischaracterizations of a Phoenix, AZ program designed to diversify the lifeguard ranks at city pools. Camerota falsely claimed that Phoenix would be hiring minority applicants as lifeguards, “even though they cannot swim” because the city must “meet quotas for diversity.”

Camerota was echoing discredited myths about a lifeguard diversity program that right-wing websites like Fox Nation, Glenn Beck's The Blaze, and National Review Online have peddled in recent days. There is no evidence that a quota system is being used. In fact, the program she referred to is a scholarship that covers the cost of lifeguard-certification courses for minority students in order to encourage a more diverse field of applicants.

Despite Camerota's claim, all scholarship-sponsored applicants will still be required to pass a swim test before they are hired.

Will Fox News correct these mischaracterizations during their April 6 segment?