Nearly three-fourths of the Manhattan commercial employment agencies that supply secretarial help are willing to accept job orders that illegally limit employment to “white Protestants,” it was disclosed today in a new survey made by the American Jewish Congress.
The 1958 study reveals that of 162 employment agencies which were asked over the telephone to supply a “white Protestant stenographer,” no less than 117 agencies–72. 2 percent of the total–accepted the order. The remaining 45–27. 8 percent–rejected it, many of them specifically referring to the New York State Law Against Discrimination.
The AJC survey, the fifth in a series of studies made every three years since 1946, shows that non-compliance with the anti-bias law in 1958 is higher than at any time since 1949. In 1946, one year after the law went into effect, 88.4 percent of Manhattan employment agencies were willing to accept a discriminatory order. The figure dropped to 64.2 percent in AJC 1949 survey but rose slightly to 65 percent and to 70.3 percent in the 1955 study.
In submitting the latest findings to Governor Averell Harriman, Shad Polier, chairman of AJC Commission on Law and Social Action, pointed out that “few would question that many substantial gains have been made under the Law Against Discrimination. We believe that the Law is presently being enforced imaginatively and vigorously by the State Commission Against Discrimination. Yet we cannot ignore the evidence, supplied by this and other studies, that much remains to be done to achieve the high goals established by the Legislature when it enacted the Law.”
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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.
