The American Jewish Committee today announced that it was initiating a long range series of studies, financed by a $250,000 foundation grant, to explore the effects of prejudice and discrimination upon the nation’s economy and its manpower resources and other aspects of human relations. The grant was given by the Maurice and Laura Falk Foundation of Pittsburgh and the research project will be known as the Maurice Falk Studies.
Waste in power, morale and productivity resulting from discrimination costs American industry some 30 billion dollars a year, according to a recent report of the President’s Committee on Contract Compliance. Dr. John Slawson, executive vice-president of the AJC, announced that the broad-gauged research program will be the first major study project of the Committee’s new Institute of Human Relations. The Institute is a center of research and education in the field of human relations and serves also as the new national headquarters of the American Jewish Committee. Dr. Slawson made his announcement at a luncheon honoring Samuel J. Bloomingdale, who was an early participant in the development of the Institute.
Outlining the purpose and scope of the Maurice Falk Studies, Dr. Slawson said that one of the areas for study will be the field of executive recruitment and development in American corporate enterprise. This would be joined with campus studies of occupational interests and choices of students–Christian and Jewish, White and Negro. The campus studies would investigate: the students’ estimate of opportunity of advancement in their chosen or preferred field; the extent to which occupational choices of the members of minority groups appear to differ from those of the majority and the reasons for the difference, the influence of the family, the fear of discrimination and other factors affecting occupational choice.
The impact of discrimination on the economics of housing will also be an important area of research for the Maurice Falk Studies. To be explored are the effects of both segregated and integrated housing on land values, and on the economy of local communities. Dr. Slawson said that available studies in this area “are highly contradictory” and that objective material “is sorely needed as a basis for intelligent citizen action.”
Citizenship duties and responsibilities as affected by economic discrimination will be another major emphasis in the study program. Barriers to full-fledged participation by minorities in the political areas of national life would be investigated, as would the responsibility of members of minority groups “to participate fully and constructively in the political and communal life of the community, state and nation.”
The Committee anticipates, Dr. Slawson declared, that the results of the campus, community and industry studies would provide “substantial raw, factual data for systematic consideration by educators, industrialists and civic leaders.”
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