Opinion ID: 2073924
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Law Against Discrimination

Text: The University contends that prior to the June 6, 1977 effective date of the 1977 amendments to the Law Against Discrimination, L. 1977, c. 122, that Law did not apply to private [2] universities. The pre-amendment version of the Law's definitional section, which is applicable to Peper's suit, read as follows: Employer does not include a club exclusively social or a fraternal, charitable, educational or religious association or corporation, if such club, association or corporation is not organized and operated for private profit. [3] [ N.J.S.A. 10:5-5(e)] Despite the plain and unambiguous exclusion of private universities from the ambit of the Law, the Appellate Division concluded, without citing any supporting authority, that Princeton was an employer within the meaning of the Law Against Discrimination. 151 N.J. Super. at 23. The appeals court properly found the University to constitute a public accommodation under N.J.S.A. 10:5-5( l ), which read, and still reads, in pertinent part that [a] place of public accommodation shall include, but not be limited to    a college and university    To prevent the alleged anomaly of having the Law Against Discrimination apply to Princeton as a public accommodation, but not as an employer, the Appellate Division found that the specific exclusion of universities from the definition of employer could not apply to any facility which was itself a public accommodation. Id. We disagree. The prohibition of discrimination in relation to public accommodation is functionally distinct from the ban on employment discrimination. The former deals only with facilities maintained for the use of the general public. See Blair v. Mayor and Council of Bor. of Freehold, 117 N.J. Super. 415, 417 (App. Div. 1971), certif. den. 60 N.J. 194 (1972); National Organization for Women v. Little League Baseball, 127 N.J. Super. 522, 530-532 (App. Div. 1974), affirmed 67 N.J. 320 (1974). Thus, Princeton could not legally discriminate in making its facilities available as an educator. The Legislature could rationally choose not to exempt a private university in that respect, but to accord the exemption as an employer. Thus, the Appellate Division erred in considering plaintiff's case as one falling under the statutory prohibition of discrimination in relation to public accommodation. In our view, the Appellate Division's holding effectively nullifies the specific exemption in N.J.S.A. 10:5-5(e) for private educational institutions as employers. A construction of a legislative enactment which would render any part thereof superfluous is disfavored. Abbotts Dairies v. Armstrong, 14 N.J. 319, 327-328 (1954); Hoffman v. Hock, 8 N.J. 397, 406-407 (1952). Moreover, despite the expansive general purpose of the Law Against Discrimination, announced in N.J.S.A. 10:5-4 to be that of making employment free from proscribed types of discrimination, a civil right in New Jersey, this Court may not ignore the plain meaning of the exemption of private educational institutions found in N.J.S.A. 10:5-5(e). To put this problem in perspective, it is useful to view the history of the Law Against Discrimination. As originally enacted in 1945, L. 1945, c. 169, it had more limited coverage than it does at present. It is beyond dispute that the Law Against Discrimination was never intended to cover all differences in treatment of employees by employers. It has been amended over a dozen times as part of a gradual legislative response directed toward eliminating forms of discrimination not theretofore banned by statute. For example, sex discrimination was expressly proscribed for the first time in 1970, pursuant to L. 1970, c. 80. While this Court has been scrupulous in its insistence that the Law Against Discrimination be applied to the full extent of its facial coverage, see Zahorian v. Russell Fitt Real Estate Agency, 62 N.J. 399 (1973); Jackson v. Concord Co., 54 N.J. 113 (1969), it has never found such coverage to exist in the face of an unambiguous exclusion. By any fair reading, N.J.S.A. 10:5-5(e) was just that  an unmistakable exclusion of private universities in their capacities as employers from the scope of the Law Against Discrimination. Moreover, this view was also held by the Attorney General. In 1976 the Division on Civil Rights received a complaint from a Trong R. Chai asserting employment discrimination by Fairleigh Dickinson University. After a Division investigation resulted in a finding of probable cause, the Division's Director received a challenge to its jurisdiction. He solicited the opinion of the Attorney General on this question and was informed that the Division lacked jurisdiction to consider charges of discrimination against private universities pursuant to the Law Against Discrimination. [4] The Division accordingly closed its file and referred the complainant to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. These determinations all antedated the Appellate Division's decision in Peper. Chai took an appeal from the Division's action and a different panel of the Appellate Division expressed unanimous disagreement with the jurisdictional decision in Peper. However, it affirmed the dismissal of Chai's complaint by the Division on Civil Rights solely on the ground that the law, as it existed at the time of the dismissal, supported that action. Chai v. Division on Civil Rights, 160 N.J. Super. 176 (App. Div. 1977). In interpreting the meaning of a statute, this Court places great weight on the interpretation of legislation by the administrative agency to whom its enforcement is entrusted. New Jersey Guild of Hearing Aid Dispensers v. Long, 75 N.J. 544, 575 (1978); Service Armament Co. v. Hyland, 70 N.J. 550, 561 (1976); Passaic Daily News v. Blair, 63 N.J. 474, 484 (1973). Where an agency has based its statutory interpretation on an opinion by the Attorney General, we have held that a court should attach weight to the Attorney General's opinion. Safeway Trails Inc. v. Furman, 41 N.J. 467, 483 (1964), app. dismissed, 379 U.S. 14, 85 S.Ct. 144, 13 L.Ed. 2d 84 (1964). We see no justification for deviating from these principles in this case. Peper contends that the stated purposes of the 1977 amendments indicate that the Legislature believed that private universities were within the coverage of the Law Against Discrimination in its pre-amendment form. The statement of the sponsor of the amending legislation was as follows: This bill will clarify some ambiguity in the present Law Against Discrimination. It will limit the present exemption from the provisions concerning employment discrimination to those cases where no governmental policy would be served by governmental regulation; specifically in cases of purely private social clubs and of religious organizations whose tenets require certain employment practices. However, Peper fails to note that the statement of the Senate State Government, Federal and Interstate Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee attached to S. 1608 indicated that the amendments removed a blanket exemption. More importantly, the views of the 1977 Legislature as to the meaning of N.J.S.A. 10:5-5(e) are not dispositive of the meaning ascribed to that section by the earlier Legislature which passed it. We have held that the question as to the intent of the Legislature that adopted the    statute is a judicial question as to which neither the action or inaction of a subsequent Legislature can be dispositive. [ Schmoll v. Creecy, 54 N.J. 194, 203 (1969)] We have no doubt that the Legislature which enacted the original version of N.J.S.A. 10:5-5(e) intended a blanket exemption of private universities in their capacity as employers from the reach of the act. Thus, whatever ambiguity the 1977 amendments removed, it did not concern the coverage of private universities under the Law Against Discrimination. [5] Nor do we find merit in Peper's equal protection arguments on this score. The statute's classification exempting private universities from its coverage is rational, even though it may not be laudable. It was perfectly reasonable to conclude in 1945 that given the total separation of the State from private universities, there was no basis for regulating them as comprehensively as public universities. Even today, the limited use of State funds for scholarship or other purposes by Princeton University is insufficient to brand that institution as an arm of the State. [6] Thus, we can only conclude that prior to the passage of L. 1977, c. 122, the Law Against Discrimination did not apply to private universities. The Legislature may attack a problem one step at a time. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 425-426, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1104-1105, 6 L.Ed. 2d 393, 399 (1961); Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc., 348 U.S. 483, 489, 75 S.Ct. 461, 465, 99 L.Ed. 563, 573 (1955); David v. Vesta Co., 45 N.J. 301, 315 (1965); Two Guys From Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, 32 N.J. 199, 218-219, 229 (1960); New Jersey Restaurant Ass'n v. Holderman, 24 N.J. 295, 300-301 (1957). The constitutionality of a legislative classification is presumed and the one who assails it must carry the burden of showing its arbitrariness. David v. Vesta Co., supra . [7] This Court has held that the Law Against Discrimination did not violate equal protection strictures where it only proscribed discrimination in publicly assisted housing. Levitt & Sons, Inc. v. Div. Against Discrimination, etc., 31 N.J. 514, 532-534 (1960), app. dismissed 363 U.S. 418, 80 S.Ct. 1257, 4 L.Ed. 2d 1515 (1960); see also Jones v. Haridor Realty Corp., 37 N.J. 384, 393-394 (1962). Only after many years of abstention has the government concluded that it has the right, power and duty to regulate private organizations. This court will not lightly conclude that distinctions in regulatory coverage bottomed on the inherent differences between state run and privately run institutions are so arbitrary as to violate either the Fourteenth Amendment or New Jersey Const. (1947) Art. I, para. 1. In fact, the determination that any private educational institution should be so regulated in its capacity as an employer came slowly. In their initial versions, neither Title VII, which scarcely covered educational institutions at all, nor the Law Against Discrimination applied to most aspects of employment at private universities. The subsequent choice to subject them to the Law Against Discrimination was a valid policy determination by the Legislature. We thus see no reason to depart from the normal rule of statutory construction which holds that amendments to a statute are given prospective application only unless the changes are merely procedural or the Legislature specifically indicates otherwise. Skulski v. Nolan, 68 N.J. 180, 202 (1975); Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. Rosenthal, 14 N.J. 372, 381 (1954). We hold that prior to the effective date of L. 1977, c. 122, June 6, 1977, the Law Against Discrimination did not apply to private universities in their capacity as employers. B