An investigation has been ordered into charges by the St. Louis Park Human Relations Committee that the school authorities in that Minneapolis suburb have discriminated in hiring teachers. Only six of the 450 teachers who were hired were Jewish despite the fact that St. Louis Park is almost one-quarter Jewish. The investigation was voted by the Park School Board.
St. Louis Park school board authorities reportedly told Rabbi Arnold Goodman, head of a special committee on education, that it was not anti-Jewish bias but rather a lack of Jewish applicants that kept down the number of Jewish teachers in the schools. The committee, called Parents for Continued Quality of Education, was formed after school board delays in hiring teachers led to the cancellation of summer school classes.
Louis Schoen, head of the St. Louis Park Human Rights Commission, said 12 or 13 teachers told the committee they had been discriminated against when they applied for teaching positions in St.Louis Park and that they all had obtained jobs elsewhere.
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