Anti-semitic Statements by School Superintendent Documented in Demands for His Ouster

The New York Regional Director of the B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that the ADL has received from 15-20 telephone calls from teachers and educators in School District One on the Lower East Side expressing fear for their jobs and the possibility of harassment as a result of the appointment of Luis Fuentes, an alleged anti-Semite, as the district’s school superintendent. According to Robert Kohler, the ADL together with other Jewish bodies have gotten calls from 30-50 Jewish teachers in the district expressing distress over Fuentes’ appointment.

The ADL was one of four Jewish organizations that urged jointly in letters to state and city education and human rights officials yesterday that they nullify Fuentes’ appointment because of his “well-documented” record of anti-Semitic statements. The other organizations were the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee.

In a separate letter addressed to Mayor John V. Lindsay, New York City School Chancellor Harvey Scribner and the New York Board of Education, Rabbi William Berkowitz, president of the New York Board of Rabbis demanded on behalf of the Board that the officials review statements by Fuentes. Rabbi Berkowitz charged the Puerto Rican militant with “blatant bias and prejudice toward Jews” and demanded that his appointment as school superintendent on the Lower East Side be rescinded.

The four Jewish organizations addressed their letter to Chancellor Scribner, State Education Commissioner Ewald B. Nyquist, NY City Human Rights Commissioner Eleanor Holmes Norton and Commissioner Jack Sable of the NY State Division of Human Rights. They cited sworn affidavits from two Jewish assistant principals who served under Fuentes in PS 155 in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district in Brooklyn in 1967 and a public statement by Fuentes at a NY City Board of Education meeting in May, 1970 as grounds for his removal. “We find totally inexplicable the fact that these statements, a matter of public record for some time now, were not sufficient to prevent this man from even being considered for appointment within the New York City school system,” the letter said.

REFERRED TO EXAMS IN YIDDISH

The sworn affidavits stated that on one occasion Fuentes said that supervisory examinations must be written in Yiddish because all New York principals were Jewish. When informed that the examinations were coded and the identities of those taking them were not known to the examiners, Fuentes remarked, “Maybe I should put a star on my examination paper,” the affidavit said.

It said that on another occasion Fuentes replied to an assistant principal’s expression of concern about ethnic challenges to the merit system, “Why don’t you change your name to Gonzales; your people (referring to Jews) have always done that.”

The four organizations noted that while Fuentes was under fire for these and other similar statements that were revealed in public print, he stated at a May 7, 1970 Board of Education meeting, “I charge that the Board of Examiners is being used to screen out certain ethnic groups under the thin veil of its being a legal way while at the same time it lends itself well, very well, to favoring one ethnic group.” He added, “I maintain that the greed of this elite group or this country club bunch of officers are performing a service for racists that are dedicated to keeping Blacks and Puerto Ricans in their place. I face the are June 30 because I’m untested, I’m uncircumcised.”

The four organizations said they were “appalled that a community school board should appoint to its highest professional position a man whose anti-Semitism is well documented.”

Rabbi Berkowitz said in his letter that Fuentes’ appointment underlined “the serious problems Jews face in the inner city. He is a man totally insensitive to the Jewish community who has time and again exhibited blatant bias and prejudice toward Jews….His uncalled for remarks against Jews are a blot on those in the field of education who are seeking to inculcate in the younger generation harmony and respect.”

Kohler told the JTA that teachers who telephoned the ADL said they saw no future for themselves in School District One because Fuentes supports the principle of Black teachers for Blacks and Puerto Rican teachers for Puerto Ricans. Some of them said that if they remained in the district they could “expect harassment.”