Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and three other members of President Ford’s Cabinet were named today as defendants in a suit filed in Federal District Court here by the American Jewish Congress charging them with violating the constitutional rights of American Jews who are excluded from participating in government-supported programs in Saudi Arabia because of their religion.
Charging that the federal government was a “silent partner” in Saudi Arabia’s “religious bigotry against Jews.” the AJ Congress asked for an injunction barring Kissinger, Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, Secretary of Commerce Elliot Richardson and Interior Secretary Thomas S. Kleppe from implementing a 1974 U.S. Saudi Arabia agreement calling for cooperation between the two countries in the fields of economics, technology and industry.
“We are asserting that no agency of government may cooperate with or participate in any program from which American citizens are barred or set apart because of their religion.” Leo Pfeffer, special counsel of the American Jewish Congress, said at a news conference in the National Press Club following the filing of the suit. He added:
“In seeking to establish the principle that the Constitutional rights of American citizens may not be waived by the government in its dealings with foreign states, this suit raises important constitutional issues with long-range implications in the field of international law. If other nations wish to benefit from American scientific know-how and other forms of U.S. assistance, they must accept the fact that the U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion.”
TWO JEWISH JOB APPLICANTS AFFECTED
The suit is a class action brought by the AJ Congress, four of its officials and two private persons–Louis Kaplan of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wise and Martin Watkins of West Chester, Pa., a professor of English, According to the complaint, Prof. Kaplan was dented–because he is Jewish–employment in a program sponsored by the Midwest Universities Gonsortium for International Activities to help improve the library facilities of the University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
Prof. Watkins charged that because he was Jewish “and therefore subject to the discriminatory and restrictive policy of the government of Saudi Arabia,” he was deterred from filling out an application requiring him to list his and his parents’ religion for a job teaching English to military personnel in Saudi Arabia that had been advertised by the Bendix-Synco Corp. of Maryland.
The AJ Congress suit noted that Kissinger and other U.S. officials have prevailed on Saudi Arabia to waive the “undesirable persons” exclusionary policy in respect to some American Jews and to admit them on a special basis. On other occasions, however, the complaint alleges, “efforts to obtain such a waiver or exemption have proved unsuccessful.”
“Even when such waivers are granted,” Pfeffer said, “this kind of ‘separate-but-equal’ treatment is equivalent to the former Southern practice of requiring Blacks to sit in the back of the bus. It is both morally and legally untenable.”
In addition to the four Cabinet members, the suit also list’s as defendants Gerald L. Parsky. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and Daniel Parker, Administrator of the Agency for International Development.
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