Bias Allegations May Delay Selection to Airport Post

Several Los Angeles City Council members said Friday they may hold up the nomination of attorney Melanie Lomax to the city’s Airport Commission because of allegedly anti-Jewish remarks attributed to her in two publications.

Lomax, 39, is a civil rights lawyer and former vice president of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP.

Lomax said Friday she is not “anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish,” has never made anti-Jewish comments and is “upset” by the allegations, which she called “nonsense.”

The issue arose Friday and was discussed privately among some council members during and after the council’s regular meeting Friday morning, sources said.

A copy of the quotations at issue was given anonymously to The Times.

Three council members confirmed that they had seen the quotations or heard about them. They said they intend to question Lomax about the statements and her feelings toward the Jewish community when she comes before the council for confirmation next Tuesday.

“The statements that I heard about were very divisive,” said Councilman Michael Woo. “My intention would be to ask her about them.” Woo said he found the statements “worrisome” because they “pit one ethnic group against another.”

A Sept. 14, 1985, story in the New York Times regarding Louis Farrakhan’s visit to Los Angeles quoted Lomax, then an NAACP official, as saying:

“The black leadership, and rightly so, is not interested in being dictated to by the Jewish leadership as to when and if they repudiate Louis Farrakhan. There is a strong sentiment in the black community and among the black leadership that the Jewish community has had too much dominance, influence and control. The First Amendment applies as much to Louis Farrakhan as to anybody else.”

In a 1988 book called “Broken Alliance--The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America,” Lomax is quoted as saying: “The Jewish community’s support of reverse discrimination had undermined affirmative action. . . . Jews see blacks as an underclass. Theirs is a patronizing, condescending attitude.”

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said Friday he is “clearly troubled” by the statements. “I think the council should be told whether the statements were made and what the context was,” he said.

Yaroslavsky said Lomax’s feelings about Jews are “relevant” to the council because, as an airport commissioner, she will be called upon to make “a lot of economic and policy decisions.”

“We want to put the emphasis on tolerance, pluralism and harmony in our community to support and promote people in our city government who share those kinds of views,” he said.

Councilwoman Joy Picus said she found the quotations “bothersome” and said she plans to ask Lomax whether they are accurate and, if so, whether she feels that way now.

Lomax said the quotes “are not accurate” and are “out of context.”

“What is not quoted,” she said, “is that I entirely disagree with everything Louis Farrakhan stands for--hatred, bigotry and demagoguery and divisiveness.” She said she has been committed to healing the rift between Jews and blacks.

Mayor Tom Bradley, who nominated Lomax, issued a statement Friday calling her “a strong leader who has dedicated much of her life to improving civil rights for all people of all races and religions.”