Letters to the Editor

摘要

To the Editor:nIn “‘The Hitlerian Rule of Quotas’” (JAH,nMarch 2006), Anthony Chen documents anNew York civil rights legislative dispute decadesnbefore the national debate. “Critics ofnfair employment,” Chen writes, “found itnuseful to profess a strong belief in racial tolerancenbut continued to oppose fep [fair employmentnpractices] legislation on the groundsnthat it would promote preferential treatment,nlead to racial quotas, and exacerbate racial divisions”n(p. 1261). Chen presumes that “fairnemployment legislation” objectively describesnfep. And when Chen tendentiously labels fepnopponent State Senator Frederic Bontecou an“ringleader” (p. 1239), he undermines the incredulitynanimating his rhetorical question:n“Since the bill mandated nondiscrimination,nwhat was their [fep opponents’] basis for expressingnfear of quotas?”(ibid.).