Jewish Congress Wants Civil Rights Bill to Ban Religious Bias

The American Jewish Congress today urged support for an amendment to the civil rights bill before the United States Senate which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion by beneficiaries of Federal aid.

Title VI of the civil rights bill, as passed by the House last February, the American Jewish Congress declared in a statement adopted by its National Executive Committee, deliberately omitted the word “religion, ” when it provided that no person shall be subjected to discrimination under programs receiving Federal assistance “on the basis of race, color or national origin.” Title VI, as originally introduced in the House under the sponsorship of the Kennedy Administration, AJCongress noted, contained the word “religion,” but it was dropped from the bill by the Judiciary Committee.

“In our opinion, the omission of religion from this Title is a serious departure from fundamental principle,” the AJCongress stressed. “Title VI is designed to enforce a broad constitutional tenet–that benefits financed out of tax raised funds may not be distributed discriminatorily. That tenet applies equally to discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin. If ‘religion’ is omitted from this title of the bill as finally passed, Congress would in effect be saying that the constitutional guarantee of equality is not to be enforced in this one area.”