An Orlando hotel has agreed to institute new anti-discrimination policies after abruptly canceling a planned conference by an Arab American group in the wake of the outbreak of hostilities in Gaza in 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

Managers at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld claimed they were concerned about safety risks as they shut down the event, even though they had received no threats and had no evidence indicating the conference posed a safety risk, a DOJ investigation concluded.

Instead, the federal agency said, the decision stemmed from the national origin of the group’s members, noting that in an internal text the hotel’s general manager referred to “an Arab group we can’t have meet at our hotel.”

“No one may be denied the right to use hotel facilities because of their national origin,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ Civil Rights Division said in a Thursday evening release. “The Justice Department is committed to protecting the rights of all people to be free from discrimination in hotels and other public accommodations around the country.”

The DOJ complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Florida, named as the sole defendant AWH Orlando Property LLC, which it described as the owner of the hotel and responsible party during the critical time frame. An AWH representative could not be reached. The listed manager is Crescent Hotels  & Resorts, LLC of Fairfax, Va., which did not respond to a request for comment.

In a Friday press release, Warren David, co-founder of the Arab America Foundation, described the group as “gratified” by the settlement but said: “The harm caused by the hotel’s actions remains significant, and we are pursuing civil damages to address the disruption to our event and the broader impact on the Arab American community.”

The settlement agreement in the case — which still needs to be approved by the court — requires the company to establish a written anti-discrimination policy, including a system of investigating guest complaints of discrimination; to conduct outreach to Arab or Arab-American groups; and to provide training to employees and executives on Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the company’s obligations under the settlement, the DOJ release said.

According to the complaint, the Arab America Foundation, a nonprofit meant to promote Arab heritage and educate Americans about the Arab identity, contracted with the DoubleTree in July 2023 to hold a conference at the hotel in November of that year.

An estimated 250 people subsequently registered to attend. But the hotel abruptly cancelled the conference a week before it was supposed to be held.

The decision to cancel was made on Oct. 27, 2023 and involved three unnamed managerial staff at DoubleTree — its then-general manager, hotel manager and director of sales — after an email from Hilton’s director of owner relations on Oct. 26 expressed concerns to them about the conference, specifically that it was to feature segments about the crisis in Gaza, which had begun earlier that month. The three subsequently drafted an email to another manager stating that the hotel was receiving calls with questions about the event, expressing surprise that it was being held.

A text conversation among the three managers shows they they considered making a phony offer to the Foundation to rebook the event with no intention of actually doing so. But ultimately the general manager decided to cancel the conference, and the director of sales informed the Foundation, citing potential risks to attendees, staff and other guests “under the current circumstances and world climate,” the complaint said.

An Orange County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant had assessed the venue on the 26th and found no security concerns, but recommended the Foundation hire four off-duty OCSO deputies for security as a precaution, which the Foundation had decided to do, the DOJ complaint said. The Director of Sales said in a later email to the Foundation’s president that its hiring of the off-duty deputies was an indication of why the hotel “may not be able to safely hold” the meeting.

In fact, the DOJ said, the hotel never received any calls, threats, concerns from law enforcement or other information indicating security risks to the event and that claims to the contrary were not true; hadn’t cancelled an event against the wishes of a customer in years; didn’t cancel any other event that weekend; and that the hiring of security for hotel events was routine.

Other conditions of the settlement include issuing a statement to the Foundation stating that all groups are welcome at the hotel, retaining a qualified compliance officer to oversee compliance with the settlement for two years and making regular reports to the DOJ about compliance.