Pettigrew Urges New Rights Laws To Counter Discrimination in North

A new civil rights bill--a "Northern Force Bill" directed against de facto segregation--is urgently needed, Thomas F. Pettigrew, associate professor of Social Psychology, said in an interview Wednesday.

He claimed that the 1964 Civil Rights Act is "obviously designed to exempt the North" from its provisions. At least three titles of the bill specify that nothing in the title is to be construed as directed against de facto segregation, he noted.

Also, an amendment to the act requires that, in order to prove discrimination by individual businesses, a plaintiff must first demonstrate a pattern of discrimination in the area. "Thus, if all restaurants in Cambridge but one serve Negroes," he said, "that restaurant would not be acting in violation of the Civil Rights Act."

Pettigrew suggested that a new civil rights act should carry "not just a stick, but a carrot," in the form of rewards for integration. He mentioned "balanced schools" as an example. If balanced schools offered special courses that students could not take at other schools, parents would recognize the advantages of the system, and the stability of balanced schools might increase, he predicted.

Pettigrew said that employment, the only area in which the 1964 Civil Rights Act affects the North, is the most important problem. The amount of crime and dependence upon relief among Negroes can be traced in part to their high unemployment rate and the low wages of those who are employed, he added.

Pettigrew advocated broadening the minimum wage to cover more service workers as a remedy for this situation. Since the proportion of non-white to white service workers is disproportionately large and has been increasing, he contended, the level and breadth of the minimum wage has special relevance to Negro employment problems.

Pettigrew emphasized the immediacy of the need for a Civil Rights Act directed at the North. "Race riots," he asserted, "are much more imminent in the North than in the South. It's not where you are on an absolute standard," he pointed out, "it's where you think you ought to ba."

"Negroes in the South can see a great many changes," he said, "but in New York, there hasn't been much change lately.

"Of course," he noted, "those Yankees aren't likely to pass such a bill soon."