News Brief

No ethnic group, she said, need “fear professional use of statistics designed to help those who have been less fortunate than they. Blacks and Puerto Ricans, other minority groups, women and the handicapped expect government to proceed on an informed basis to correct their awesome problems in fair employment and unemployment…”But every ethnic group has the right to expect that fairness for deprived groups will not be achieved at the expense of others who have fought hard to gain their job status. Neither destruction of the merit system nor infamous quota systems can be tolerated.”

Commissioner Norton noted that “At one time or another in this country, quota systems have been used against minorities, most notably Jews and blacks. Now there is talk of quotas being used to favor some who suffered discrimination. While I know of no government that has approved the use of quotas. I can speak only for the City Human Rights Commission. We have not and will not use quotas,” she declared. Mrs. Norton added: “I am painfully aware of the historic basis for…apprehension by Jews and of some more recent events in this city that have fed that apprehension. But it would be a tragedy if history were to become not only a cause for vigilance, as it must, but for hysteria and intergroup conflict based on false statements and conclusions, as it can.”