The New York State Commission Against Discrimination announced yesterday it had dropped plans to appeal against a court ruling ordering the Arabian-American Oil Company to stop asking job applicants whether they were Jews.
Elmer A. Carter, SCAD chairman, who had previously said the state agency would appeal the ruling of New York Supreme Court Justice Henry Epstein, said yesterday that SCAD had received “recent information that tended to show that the United States State Department’s attitude in the matter had undergone changes.” However, a State Department spokesman in Washington denied any change in policy.
ARAMCO operates in Saudi Arabia, which bans employment of Jews in its territory. SCAD allowed ARAMCO in 1950 and in 1956 an exemption from the state law barring employers in New York from asking job applicants about their religion. The exemptions were granted “on the basis of representations by the State Department that a bona-fide occupational qualification for ARAMCO’s operations in Saudi Arabia was in the best interests of this country.”
The exemptions were appealed by the American Jewish Congress. Last July, Justice Epstein declared that no foreign nation could dictate non-enforcement of a New York state law and ordered SCAD to require ARAMCO to comply with the law. Mr. Carter said on July 17, immediately after the ruling, that it would be appealed, In his statement yesterday, he did not amplify or explain what he said was a change in attitude of the State Department.
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