Update: (July 31, 2008): The New Jersey Supreme Court held that workers taunted about their religion or ancestry are entitled to the same legal protection as the victims of sex, race and ethnic harassment. More>>
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West Orange, NJ, August 22, 2007…The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) this week filed a "friend of court" brief in Cutler v. Dorn, a case involving a Jewish police officer from Haddonfield, NJ, who claimed that other police officers' anti-Semitic remarks and actions created a hostile work environment.
The brief in support of Jason Cutler urges the New Jersey Supreme Court to reverse that part of the decision which characterized anti-Semitic comments made by the officer's supervisor and co-workers as "mere teasing."
Lawrence Cooper, New Jersey Regional Board Chair, and Etzion Neuer, New Jersey Regional Director said: "The lower Court's use of the term 'teasing' to describe comments like 'dirty Jew' and 'Jews make all the money' fails to capture the true harm these remarks were meant to convey. Such assertions targeting a Jewish employee can have a very destructive discriminatory impact in a workplace, and should not be dismissed or trivialized."
Other organizations joining the brief include American Jewish Committee and The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey. The brief was submitted on behalf of the coalition by ADL Regional Advisory Board member Philip Rosenbach of the firm Berman Rosenbach, P.C.
