Three Jewish organizations today rejected the invitation of Community School Board No. 1, Manhattan, to attend an executive meeting of the Board on the appointment of Luis Fuentes as District Superintendent. Instead they invited the Board to join them in requesting Chancellor Harvey B. Scribner to review the case of Fuentes who, they charged, is unqualified for the post because of anti-Semitic slurs made by him as a Brooklyn principal.
They said that since the local board itself was accused of “dereliction of duty” in the matter, it could not “sit in judgment” upon itself. If Dr. Scribner continues to refuse to hear the case, the organizations said, the local board should join them in requesting that State Education Commissioner Ewald B. Nyquist take jurisdiction.
The American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and Jewish Labor Committee, which have protested the Fuentes appointment, charged the local school board with dereliction of duty in not assessing Fuentes’ past record and judging him unfit for the new post. The letter today, in response to the invitation of Mrs. Georgina Hoggard, chairwoman of School Board No. 1, was sent by Victor Herwitz, special counsel for the three organizations.
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