The American Jewish Congress said today that it would go to court if necessary to challenge an order from the Civil Rights office of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare demanding that City University supply it with data relating to the race and sex of its faculty and employes. The AJCongress called the order “illegal and unconstitutional” and charged that such demands “give explicit encouragement to the establishment of quotas.”
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, president of the AJCongress, said in a letter to HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson today that his organization would “urge the Chancellor of City University to refuse” to comply with the order. He called the HEW action “not only an invasion of privacy and academic freedom but an invitation to discrimination.”
Rabbi Hertzberg objected specifically to HEW’s order that the University supply the names of specific faculty members along with such data as their race, sex and age. “Once employes are identified individually by these designations, there is grave peril that decisions on their tenure and promotion will be determined not by virtue of their proficiency, but on the basis of race, sex or age,” he wrote to Secretary Richardson. He urged the Secretary “to withdraw this wholly unwarranted demand upon City University.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
