J.l.c. Protests Omission of Jews from Federal Study on Job Bias

The failure of the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to include Jewish workers among the minority groups whose job status is being studied to determine fair employment patterns, was scored today by the Jewish Labor Committee.

Taking note of the newly issued “Equal Employment Opportunity Employer Information Report EEO-1, ” Adolph Held, national president of the Jewish Labor Committee, said the questionnaire seeks to determine statistics only in regard to Negro, Oriental, American Indian and Spanish American workers, despite the representations that Jews be included made by the JLC to the Commission at its hearing in Washington on Dec. 16.

“This action is particularly dumbfounding, ” said Mr. Held, “in view of the statement by the Commission on the first page of its form that: ‘The information requested in this report will enable us better to meet that responsibility and to do our part in assuring that ability alone — rather than such irrelevant considerations as race, color, religion, sex or national origin — provides the standard by which every American worker is judged.”

“The best available research fully supports the assertion that discrimination against Jews continues in our major centers of Jewish population in white collar, technical, administrative, executive and professional employment,” Mr. Held continued. “Thus the failure to include Jewish workers among the minority groups whose employment status is being surveyed by the EEOC is a failure we protest strongly. The omission is rendered even more objectionable by the Commission’s own implied recognition of the fact that the irrelevant consideration of religion does enter into employment opportunity. The Jewish Labor Committee urges the Commission to move immediately to correct this serious omission in its employer survey form. “