The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has filed legal charges against four American corporations charging them with anti-Jewish discrimination in their hiring policies and violating the civil rights of American citizens.
At a press conference at ADL headquarters here today it was announced that charges were filed June 4 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against Aramco Service Co., Texas; Bendix-Siyanco, Maryland; Hospital Corporation of America, Tenn.; and International Schools Services, Princeton, N.J. The four companies are accused of accepting and complying with anti-Jewish job practices of Saudi Arabia and Abu-Dubai. According to Arnold Forester, ADL’s general counsel, those firms are “screening out Jews from employment in the Arab world on the basis of religion,” He cited Aramco, the world’s largest oil combine, for demanding baptismal certificates from candidates seeking employment overseas, to prove that they are not Jewish.
Forster said that the charges of discrimination made to the EEOC will be “preliminary steps to Federal Court” If the ADL’s application for an immediate “right to sue” is granted by the EEOC. Forster added that ADL filed the charges in order to compel the four firms “to cease and desist their collusive discrimination with the Arab countries,” to nullify those clauses in the U.S.-Saudi agreement which encourage them to do so and to obtain a ruling that will “serve as a binding precedent upon American firms doing business with the Arabs.” The U.S. trade agreement with Saudi Arabia, signed June 1974, stated that the U.S. agrees to be “sensitive to the social, cultural, political and religious contexts of Saudi Arabia.”
Seymour Graubard, national chairman of ADL, said that the League “deliberately selected” four big and powerful corporations in order to reach “a clear and unequivocal” rule against the illegal discrimination of American Jews. He added that these companies “are simply the top of the iceberg” and that the ADL’s legal action against them is only “the vanguard” for more legal charges against American firms discriminating against Jews. Forster said the ADL continues with its investigation of American firms dealing with the Arabs. He noted that since the ADL disclosed last February that it has been investigating American corporations who yield to Arab pressure, it became more difficult “but not impossible” to proceed with the investigation.
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