State to overhaul casino hiring program

Friday, Dec. 17, 1999 | 12:14 p.m.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- New Jersey casino regulators plan to overhaul an affirmative action program that monitors the hiring of women and minorities in casinos, officials said Wednesday.

The program's regulations, which set numerical goals for the percentage of women and minorities a casino should employ in certain job classes, will be rewritten in light of a court ruling that called such quotas discriminatory, said James Hurley, chairman of the Casino Control Commission.

"They're not defensible, based on what the court told us. We've got to find a method besides setting those numerical goals," Hurley said.

On Nov. 12, a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia reinstated part of a reverse-discrimination lawsuit filed by Karl Schurr, a stage technician at Resorts Casino Hotel.

Schurr, who is white, sued after being passed over for a job that was later filled by a black man. Resort officials have said they hired the man because the commission's affirmative action plan required them to hire a minority.

Goal-based regulations like the commission's have the practical effect of encouraging discriminatory hiring, the ruling said.

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