NY State Education Commissioner Ewald Nyquist has ordered an investigation to determine whether the license of Luis Fuentes should be revoked on grounds that he is unfit to serve as superintendent of Community School District 1 on Manhattan’s lower East Side. Fuentes has been accused by Jewish and non-Jewish groups of having made anti-Semitic remarks and other ethnic slurs while serving as principal in the former Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district in Brooklyn. The Education Commissioner is authorized to revoke a license if an investigation shows there is sufficient cause.
Nyquist ordered the probe in response to widespread demands for an investigation of Fuentes’ fitness. He said he had received letters from State Assemblymen Albert H. Blumenthal, Antonio G. Olivieri and Andrew Stein, all Manhattan Democrats; from the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, and from the AJ Congress, AJ Committee, B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Labor Committee.
The NY State Supreme Court ordered new elections in District 1 last week after upholding a suit by Fuentes’ opponents against his supporters on the local school board. The NY State Human Rights Commission said last week that it was preparing a report that charged City School Chancellor Harvey B. Scribner with prolonging the District 1 dispute by delaying actions he could have taken to ease the situation. Jewish groups urged Dr. Scribner last Aug, to look into the charges against Fuentes.
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