Court Opinion

ID: 9700856
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:51:20.777771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:15.289354
License: Public Domain

*537Conford, P. J. A. D.
(temporarily assigned), dissenting. I believe the Appellate Division decided this appeal correctly, 147 N. J. Super. 201 (1977), and I would affirm its judgment. I think it impossible to disagree with its conclusion that both the Division on Civil Rights and the Commissioner of Education have statutory jurisdiction over the subject matter of the instant complaint. The Court, while giving lip service to the same conclusion, effectively strips the Division of jurisdiction by holding it to be under a mandatory obligation to forgo its exercise in favor of deferring to the Commissioner of Education.
The inconvenience of concurrent jurisdiction in respect of the subject matter here implicated is obvious, but as Judge •Crane aptly observed in the Appellate Division, the matter is one for attention by the Legislature, 147 N. J. Super, at 212, rather than improvisation of so radical a cure by the Court as declared here.
Pending legislative attention to the subject, the most salutary course of administrative handling of this kind of complaint, when brought by the parties before the Division, would be for it to require the Commissioner of Education, or an appropriate subordinate, to testify before the Division, or where appropriate, to participate in conciliation conferences, so that the educational expertise of the Department of Education could be made available to the Division for the most edified and effective exercise of its jurisdiction in disposing of the particular case. Moreover, it would be as wise as it would normally be expected that the Division would accord deference to the regulations of the Department of Education in the matter of sex discrimination in the disposition of complaints before it. These guides, in combination with the Division’s proven record of effectiveness in and devotion to the objective of eradication of invidious discrimination, could achieve a result both respectful of the existing legislative mandate of jurisdiction in the Division and conducive to the most prudent exercise thereof in the public interest in the educational sphere.
*538Justice Clifford joins in this dissenting opinion.
Schreiber, J., concurring in the result.
For reversal — Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Sullivan, P ashman, Schreiber and Handler — 5.
For affirmance — Justice Clieeord and Judge Coneord — 2.