A citizens’ committee was formed here to press for an ordnance to outlaw discrimination in housing. Benjamin H. Swig, the well-known Jewish leader, is co-chairman of the committee. According to members of the committee, bias in housing exists in this city, directed against Negroes and against Jews. The ordinance would affect only this city.
In a number of community apartments in this city, the committee charges, there is a “gentleman’s agreement” to bar the sale or rental of dwellings to Jews. A committee leader said “there are other evidences of anti-Semitic policies in this field.”
The American Jewish Congress, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civic and civil-rights organizations in the State will appear before the California State Supreme Court tomorrow, to urge reversal of a county, ruling holding that real estate agents are not subject to the State’s civil-rights law.
At issue is a ruling in Orange County, where the county court had exempted a real estate agent from the provisions of the law which, among other things, forbids racial or religious discriminations “in all business establishments of every kind what-so ever.” The lower court has ruled the law does not apply to a real estate broker who has refused to sell a house to a man of Mexican ancestry.
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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.
