ADL Praises Hew Statement

The Anti-Defomation League of B’nai B’rith has expressed satisfaction with the action of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in reasserting and upholding employment rights of its religiously observant employees. “We are pleased that the agency acted with immediacy after we expressed to Joseph Califano, its head, our concern over a memorandum issued by the director of one of HEW’s branches which ran counter to expressed government policy and public law on religious observances,” Justin, J. Finger, director of ADL’s civil rights division, said.

Finger wrote Califano after ADL received complaints concerning a memo circulated by HEW’s director of the Public Health Service Science branch which recommended that the best way to deal with the problem of personnel who want time off for religious reasons is not to hire them at all. In a letter to Finger, Robert C. Wetherell, Jr., associate commissioner for legislative affairs in the HEW’s Food and Drug Administration, wrote that his agency shores ADL’s “concern about the proper implementation” of the public law which provides for work schedules to accommodate the personal religious needs of Federal employees. He added that “the FDA has taken corrective action to ensure that this type of misunderstanding will not happen again.”