Only seven states in this country have laws outlawing racial discrimination in employment, a national survey undertaken by the Associated Press established. The results of the survey, made public today, also show that three other states have set up fair practices commissions on an educational basis, while bills to set up such commissions are pending in 13 states.
Twenty-six other states have no Fair Employment Practices Commission. They include all the Southern states where such laws are opposed on grounds that they would upset the South’s traditional segregation of races. Southern Democrats have blocked proposals in Congress for a Federal F.E.P.C., but the issue is still a live one in Washington.
Bills have been introduced in both houses to set up an F.E.P.C. with enforcement authority, but committees have yet to begin hearings. If Congress refuses to act, President Truman may follow President Roosevelt’s course and create a commission by executive order. An order by Truman on February 2 directed the Defense and Commerce Departments to include in all defense contracts provisions forbidding discrimination on grounds of race, color or national origin. This would apply to both prime and sub contracts.
On the state government level, New York has pioneered F.E.P.C. The New York State Commission Against Discrimination began work July 1, 1945. The New York law carries penalties. Violation of a commission order is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment up to a year or by a fine of not more than $500, or both. The commission moves delicately and its reports show that conciliation and persuasion settle its cases. Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Washington, New Jersey and Oregon have followed New York’s lead in enacting F.E.P.C. legislation.
States in whose legislatures F.E.P.C. bills are pending include Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Utah, Missouri, Colorado, West Virginia, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, California, Illinois. Indiana has had an F.E.P.C. since 1945, but it provides no penalties for violation. New Mexico set up a commission in 1949, but gave it neither money nor power to enforce its rulings. The Wisconsin law authorizes the state F.E.P.C., as one type of penalty, to publish its findings. But that has never been done.
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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.
