The union times., 1948-04-03
Would Outlaw Race, Ancestry
 
Sherman Speaks For Gen. tral Labor Council
 Vote Is 1924

By a vote 76 to "A, the Yale Political Union Friday night voted to uphold the stand of the New Haven Central Labor Coun- cil that racial and religious dis crlmlnation against students ap- plylng to enter colleges and uni versailles should be outlawed bv state legislation.
 Following a 4O-minute ad. dress by Nathan Sherman. speaking for the Central La bOr Council, and an hour of debate, the student Organiza. ton overwhelmingly passed the following resolution:
 Resolved, That the Political Union favors proposed state legislation barring racial and religious discrimination in ad- mission policies of educational institutions"
 THREE WINGS
 The meeting, held in StrathcOns Hall, was presided over by Richard Brown, president of the Political Union. Previously, the Labor. Lib- eral, and Conservative Wings of inc Union had caucused. The Labor and Liberal groups had voted to support the resolution. and the Conservatives had voted against if. When the actual vote was taken at the end of the meeting, the Labor and Liberal groups held fast; and almost half of the Conservative Wing bOlted the caucus decision. and voted with the Labor and Liberal groups.
 In his prepared talk, Sherman cited the use of regional quotas as a ire quentt pretext for religious and racial discrimination
 One of the weakest links in the chain of civil rights in America" he said, lis the lack of equality of oD- portunity of education"
 Organized labor is interested in civil rights, he added, because Eve know that operating, as we often are forced to, in an area of conflict, our rights are safe only as long as the rights of minorities are safe"
 CITES EVIDENCE
 Evidence that discrimination against Catholics, Jews, and Negroes exists in the colleges and universities of the United States was presented by the speaker by citing the facts gathered | by Presidents Committee on Civil Rights; the Presidents Committee on Higher Education; and the New York State Commission on the Need for a State University.
 i The Presidents Committee on Civil Rights found so much evidence that indirect and insidiouS methods were being used, Sherman said, that it came out fatly with this statement:
 Tt is clear that there is much dis elimination, based on prejudice. in admission of students to private col leges, vocational schools, and gradu- ate schools"
 A HICHLIGHT
 A highlight of the figures quoted by the speaker was the fact that of the l,Z80 nursing schools in the country, ,214 are for whites only.
 ''The Committee on Civil Rights," he said, pointed to the medical schools in New York City as as ex- ample of what goes on. In its in- vestigatiOns, one witness. a member of a medical schools admission committee, admitted that prejudice against Irish Catholics affected his judgment and there was consider able evidence of prejudice against Jews. Americans of Italian descent also have difficulty in getting into professional schools. In the past 25 years, fewer than 50 Negroes have been graduated from the medical schools in New York.''
 Discrimination, Sherman said, strikes at one of the basic ingredients of our democracy-equality of oppor- tunity.
 Education is supposedly a means for broadening the horizon of oppor- tunity for every American" he con- tinued. But there is danger that our present policy will make the colleges an instrument for creating the very inequalities they are designed to pre- vent
 "As the Commission on Higher Education puts it: If the ladder scarcely rises at all at the door of others, while at the same time formal education is made prerequisite to occupational and social advance, then education may become the means, not of eliminating race and class distinc- tionS, but of deepening and solidify- ing them"
 The. speaker asserted that Fair Educational Practices Law would simply mean that candidates for ] <-"* Continued in adjoining Column