Representatives of several major American Jewish organizations tried Tuesday to put to rest the notion that the civil rights bill proposed by Democrats in Congress would result in the use of minority hiring quotas by employers.
“The issue of quotas is one to which we are especially sensitive, having suffered the consequences of quotas so powerfully,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
“We are offended by the characterization of this bill as a quota bill, and we view the allegation that it is a quota bill as no more than a red herring” used to “exploit people’s fears.”
Saperstein was one of six representatives of Jewish organizations who spoke at a Capitol Hill news conference in support of the civil rights bill, which the House of Representatives is expected to vote on next week.
The Senate is waiting for the House vote before it introduces the bill, which is designed to circumvent five 1989 Supreme Court decisions that make it more difficult for people to prove that they are victims of job discrimination.
President Bush has charged that if the civil rights bill becomes law, employers will impose minority hiring quotas to avoid costly lawsuits alleging discrimination.
The president cited this reason when he vetoed a similar bill last year. But Democrats reintroduced it in January as the first piece of legislation submitted to the 102nd Congress.
“I don’t think there is any issue that I have seen on the American domestic agenda to which the Jewish community is as unified as it is on this,” said Diana Aviv, associate executive vice chair of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, which coordinates policy for national and local Jewish organizations.
She said that 12 of NJCRAC’s 13 national member agencies and all 117 of its local community relations councils support the bill.
DOUBTS FROM ORTHODOX GROUPS
The one NJCRAC member that believes the bill will result in quotas is the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Leaders of that group are meeting Wednesday night to discuss whether to remain neutral, as the Orthodox Union did last year, or publicly oppose it.
The only major Jewish organization to oppose the bill so far is Agudath Israel of America, another Orthodox group.
At the news conference, representatives of Jewish organizations stressed they have special “credibility” in denying the bill would result in quotas because of the past experience American Jews have had with quotas, which were once used to limit Jewish enrollment in colleges.
Michael Lieberman, associate director and counsel of the Washington office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, said that as the bill was drafted, “ADL made clear its strong opposition to any remedial legislation which could lead to the imposition of quotas.”
“The bill’s drafters attempted to avoid a divisive debate and introduced a bill which we and other longtime opponents of quotas could endorse,” Lieberman said.
While the Orthodox groups claim employers would introduce quotas to prevent costly litigation, Lieberman argued that those employers who do so “may well find themselves subject to the very litigation they seek to avoid.”
“ADL believes that it is illegal, ineffective and immoral for employers to hire or promote on the basis of any individual’s race, ethnicity or gender,” Lieberman said.
OFFERS PROTECTION FOR WOMEN
Mark Pelavin, Washington representative of the American Jewish Congress, said those opposing the bill “have not offered one shred of evidence that employers resorted to hiring quotas” under the standards used for 19 years before the 1989 Supreme Court decisions.
The bill would also allow persons discriminated against because of their sex, religion or national origin to sue for monetary damages. While victims of racial discrimination currently can seek compensatory and punitive damages, women and religious minorities can only receive back pay and reinstatement in their jobs.
Sammie Moshenberg, director of the Washington office of the National Council of Jewish Women, said, “In this day and age, it is unconscionable that women suffering from intentional discrimination are not allowed the same redress as other victims of workplace discrimination.”
Moshenberg charged that the Bush administration has used the “emotional” quota issue to oppose the bill because if “they say they are opposed to women receiving equity in treatment when they are victims of intentional discrimination, the American voters will repudiate that stand” in the 1992 election campaign.
Meanwhile, Agudath Israel has issued a study of the bill, conducted by two members of its legal staff, which expresses particular concern about the bill’s penalties for unintentional discrimination.
David Zwiebel, Agudath Israel’s general counsel, and Abba Cohen, director of its Washington office, said the “law should come down hard on employers who are found to have engaged intentionally in unlawful discriminatory employment practices.”
COMPLAINTS OF ‘REVERSE DISCRIMINATION’
But they warned that when an employer’s practices have merely resulted in “disparities between the composition of his work force and the general population of qualified employees, the law should proceed with extreme caution.”
They acknowledged that quotas today seek to promote “a commendable goal of increasing opportunities for racial and ethnic minorities.” But they pointed out that Jews could be “victims of quotas today no less than they were a generation or two ago.”
The report noted that “for every call Agudath Israel receives complaining of religious discrimination, another one comes in complaining of ‘reverse discrimination.'”
Also present at Tuesday’s news conference supporting the civil rights bill were representatives of the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith International, B’nai B’rith Women, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Jewish Labor Committee, Na’amat USA, National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of America.
The Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot and the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism also endorsed the bill.
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.
