Adl-sponsored Study Finds Laity Reject Church Stand Against Prejudice

A claim that over 40 percent of white Americans approve of the racist views of third party presidential candidate George Wallace was made here today by Prof. Seymour N. Lipset, a Harvard political scientist participating in a University of California centennial symposium on the patterns of American prejudice. The forum was based on the findings of a five-year research program conducted by the University’s survey research center under a half million dollar grant from the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

Prof. Lipset, said white Anglo-Saxon Protestants in American rural areas and small towns are today a cultural-religious minority “that is out of step with the majority and represent a frustrated group in the changing racial picture.” He warned that “the more virulent backers of racism have united behind the candidacy of George Wallace.”

The symposium was also addressed today by Undersecretary of Commerce Howard J. Samuels, who said that American industry had greater possibilities for immediate and significant action in breaking down the walls of prejudice and discrimination than any other aspect of society. He noted that it was in jobs that the Negro feels the effect of discrimination first and most sharply, but that the shop of office offers the best “built-in situation” for equal participation by the races.

Two University of California sociologists reported at the symposium yesterday that a majority of the church and synagogue attending laity reject the virtually unanimous stand taken by official church bodies against religious and racial prejudice. Dr. Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, both participants in the ADL funded program, warned in their report that “one cannot assume too readily that religion is a powerful and reliable force against prejudice.”