The New York State Committee on Discrimination announced here that it had approved certain amendments to the Austin-Mahoney Bill–which would prohibit discrimination by institutions of higher learning in New York State–to meet the objections of groups opposed to the measure.
Meanwhile, the Association of Colleges and Universities in New York State has come out against the bill, and the heads of the four city colleges in New York City have asked that action on it be deferred for another year until after a State commission appointed to study discrimination in education makes its report.
The amendments which were offered to the Legislature last night by the bill’s sponsors make more specific the exemptions granted religious and sectarian institutions, exempt faculty members from the no-discrimination provisions, exempt distinotly private schools and add a ban on segregation in education. They also delete the phrase that “education is basically a public function,” which had been attacked by Catholic Church leaders.
Dr. David Petegorsky, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, which is fighting for the bill’s passage, today decried attempts to make the legislation a religious issue, declaring that all surveys have shown that discrimination has hit Italian Catholics and Negroes as hard, if not harder, than Jews. “No one who is honestly determined to end bias in our educational system can any longer find any basis whatsoever for continued opposition to the bill,” in its amended form, he said.
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