Assemblyman Asks Suspension Pending Speedy Hearing Jewish Groups Renew Demand for Ouster of Fuentes

Three major Jewish organizations, which had protested the appointment of Luis Fuentes as superintendent of Community School District One on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, declared today that nothing had happened “to change our conviction” that Fuentes was “an unfit superintendent for District One or any other school district. “Fuentes has been charged with frequent anti-Semitic and anti-Italian remarks. The statement by the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the Jewish Labor Committee was made in response to a statement Friday by Fuentes and by District One board member Henry Ramos. At the same time, the immediate suspension of Fuentes was demanded in a letter to New York City Board of Education Chancellor Harvey Scribner from Albert M. Blumenthal, Democrat-Liberal State Assembly member from Manhattan.

The three-agency statement said that nowhere in Fuentes’ Friday statement “is there any indication that Mr. Fuentes recognizes his anti-Semitism in the past and regrets it.” The Jewish groups said their “inescapable conclusion” was that Fuentes was “a convinced racist whose bigotry and recism are thoroughly integrated into his behavior or that this is a man attempting to achieve a personal following by pitting group against group, or perhaps both.”

The statement said Ramos had declared that Fuentes’ appointment “was possible when we began opening our eyes to the political control of the schools that whites have had for years.” The Jewish groups replied that the issue was not political control, which the groups rejected as “the proper basis” for such appointments, but the appointment of an individual with “a long record of bigotry.” The three groups added that “we are currently exploring all the avenues” for Fuentes’ removal.

Blumenthal asked for Fuentes’ suspension pending a “prompt and thorough hearing” into the charges of racism. He cited section 2590-L of the state approved decentralization law as the Chancellor’s authority for such action. Blumenthal said that if Fuentes was innocent of the charges, a hearing would establish that innocence, and that if the charges were substantiated “and demonstrated unbecoming conduct,” Fuentes must be “immediately and finally dismissed.”