A commission to study practices of racial and religious discrimination in New York State and to recommend remedial legislation will be established as result of a bill signed yesterday by Governor Thomes E. Dewey. The commission will be composed of 23 members, fifteen of whom will be appointed by the Governor. The other eight are to be members of the State Legislature to be appointed by legislative leaders.
The Governor’s bill creating the new commission declares that practices of discrimination against any inhabitants of the state because of race, color, creed or national origin are matters of state concern that threaten “the rights and proper privileges” of the inhabitants of the state and menace “the institutions and foundation of a free democratic state.”
Acting on the Governor’s recommendation, the legislature sidetracked all pending anti-discrimination bills to await the commission’s report, to be submitted at next year’s legislative session. Eight members of the state war council committee on discrimination resigned in protest because two bills which it had recommended were among those sidetracked. One of these bills provided for the creation of a civil rights bureau in the Department of Law to combat discrimination and the other would have made it unlawful for employers and labor unions to practice racial and religious discrimination.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
