A spokesman for the four Jewish organizations which have denounced the appointment of Luis Fuentes as community school superintendent for District One on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, said today the groups had raised the issue with State Education Commissioner Ewald Nyquist, who declared last night that he was willing to hold a hearing on charges of racism against Fuentes under certain conditions.
Nyquist said that if a grievance against the appointment of Fuentes, who has been charged with anti-Semitic and anti-Italian slurs when he was a principal in a Brooklyn school, was brought to him and if New York City School Chancellor Harvey Scribner and the City Board of Education failed or refused to settle the issue first, he would proceed with a hearing and render a decision “as soon as I can.”
The spokesman for the Jewish groups added that Nyquist’s office responded “early this week” that the Commissioner “shared our concerns and had authority to act on the matter under provisions of the State Education Law.” The spokesman added that the Commissioner said that Chancellor Scribner, “as chief officer of the city school system,” should be given “the opportunity to act first. Commissioner Nyquist indicated that if the matter could not be resolved at the city level, it would fall within his (the Commissioner’s) jurisdiction,” the spokesman said. The four groups are the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the Jewish Labor Committee.
The spokesman noted that Albert Blumenthal, Democrat-Liberal State Assembly member from Manhattan, had sent a letter to Scribner, demanding immediate suspension of Fuentes pending “a prompt and thorough hearing” into the charges of racism. The spokesman added that the four groups had communicated with Scribner and “we are waiting for the Chancellor to take action. In the meantime, we will be in touch with Commissioner Nyquist as to the next step.”
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