1948 a Good Year in Fight on Anti-Semitism. Anti-defamation League Report Declares

The year 1948, a "year of great gains, violent reactions and, in certain areas, increased discrimination" should go down "on the credit side of the ledger" in the fight on anti-Semitism, the Ant1-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith declares in its annual survey made public today by New York Supremo ?ourt Justice Meier Steinbrink, national chairman of the League. ,p/>The nationwide study, prepared under the supervision of Jacob Grumet, chairman, and Arnold Forster, director of the League’s civil rights division, charts the trends and patterns of anti-Semitism during 1948 and details the extent to which discrimination against Jews exists in housing, employment, education, the professions and other areas of American life.

"The past year was a good year," declared Justice Steinbrink, "because we witnessed an increased awareness among Americans of the problems of minority bias. The facts in this careful survey point to many inequities in American life. But they also point to the conscientious efforts of many Americans who are working to cleanse our nation of anti-Semitism and minority hatred."

Salient findings of the survey include:

1-Continued and widespread prevalence of prejudice in employment. A spot survey of the registration forms of private employment agencies reveals that 60,6 ##rcent ask questions about religion; 33.9 percent about nationality; 28.4 percent about place of birth; 16,5 percent about descent, and 11.9 percent about race. Sti11 another study conducted in 19 large cities disclosed that 89 percent of the employment agencies included the "religion" question. Selecting September 1948 as a sample month, one investigation revealed that discriminatory Job offers were accepted by private employment agencies in at least 55 large cities.

There were also measurable gains. A check by 15 vocational service agencies discloses that in states where FEPC laws exist, only one out of 23 Job applicants was questioned about his religion, while In other states the ratio was one out of ?our.

NUMBER AND ACTIVITY OF ANTI-SEMITIC ORGANIZATIONS DECREASED

2-Ihe U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision declaring racial and religious ?strictive covenants unenforceable in state or federal courts was an historic land{SPAN}##rk{/SPAN} in the battle against bigotry. To circumvent the Court’s decision various {SPAN}##oups{/SPAN} and agencies are now resorting to tricky collusive devices and there remains {SPAN}##tensive discrimination against Jews and other minorities seeking to buy or rent ##using.{/SPAN}3-Although 1948 saw a decrease in the number and activity of anti-Semitic organizations, 12 new anti-Semitic organizations were organized during the year. ?ere are now 47 groups operating in the United States which are openly anti-Semitic.

4-Continued use of racial and religious questions in screening applicants for ?mission to college. One year after the President’s Commission on Higher Education ##ged the deletion of discriminatory inquiries from college application blanks, 87 ?rcent of the non-denominational colleges, both public and private, still ask such ##estions. A study of college admissions shows that a Jewish student has a 56 percent chance of acceptance by the college of his first choice, a Catholic a 67 percent and a Protestant a 77 percent chance.New York State took the lead to eliminate bias from the campus by enacting the first fair educational practices act in the nation, making it Illegal to disqualify students from admission to colleges because of race, color, creed or religion. There were also a number of isolated attempts to eliminate discrimination in colleges by students and administrators. Two notable examples: The California Student Government conference set aside May 10-14 as anti-Racial Discrimination Week for the junior colleges of California. The Amherst chapter of Phi Kappa Psi forfeited its charter after insisting on initiating a Negro student. It was up-held in its action by the President of Amherst.

5-Almost 98 percent of the State application blanks for licensing of five major professions accounting, law, dentistry, optometry and medicine in the 48 states and the District of Columbia, contain questions which are strongly discriminatory and have no relation to competency in these fields. Various state medical boards also arbitrarily reject graduates of European medical schools, compounding a discriminatory situation against the many Jews who seek medical education abroad because they can not get it at home. Progress can be reported in solving the latter problem. The State of Colorado’s Medical licensing board, after an inquiry conducted by Gov. William L. Knous, relaxed its ban on foreign medical schools and compiled a list of 28 approved European medical schools.

6-Social discrimination continued in many areas. Resort literature still contains blatant anti-Semitism and many hotel owners ignore or evade civil rights laws. An extensive test of newspaper resort advertisements revealed that a prospective guest with a Jewish name had only a 27 percent chance of being accepted by the resort of his choice, while one with a "non-Jewish" name had a 90 percent chance of acceptance. Not all resort advertisers discriminated, but those that did no longer used the discriminatory phraseology "restricted clientele" now barred by

7-Credit companies and insurance agencies are contributing to discrimination by confidential systems of reporting which place great emphasis on the irrelevant factors of race and religion in determining the credit risk of an individual.