Job Bias Case Settled

A dispute involving a Jewish professor who charged he was denied an opportunity to compete for a faculty position at Temple University because he is white has been resolved by an agreement under which the professor withdrew his complaint in exchange for a cash settlement, the Philadelphia chapter of the American Jewish Committee reported today.

Prof. Martin Goldman, a specialist in Afro-American history, charged he had been advised that his qualifications for a faculty position at the university’s Institute of Pan-African Studies were the best of all applicants but that he was denied a personal interview when it was learned that he was white. Goldman charged the university with racial discrimination and the AJ Committee brought the issue to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Under the agreement, Goldman received cash equal to the salary he would have earned at the university had he been hired, less other salary earned during the time. In offering the $5500 settlement, the university did not concede that any discriminatory act had taken place but expressed a wish to avoid lengthy and costly litigation.

Solomon Fisher, chapter chairman, said that the Goldman case “involved holding a position open for a minority professor without permitting a qualified white academic to compete for the post, an action we held to be also unfair, discriminatory and illegal.” He expressed the hope that the settlement would alert academic institutions “to refrain from reverse discrimination or the use of quotas as they go about the important and necessary task of providing greater opportunities for minority students and faculty.”