Third World Interim Inc. is a black-owned firm that trains minority workers and helps them get jobs. The New York company was hit by a lawsuit by former employee William Hoff, who charged that he was fired because he was white. The dismissal, he therefore maintained, was "in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting racially motivated discharges."

But as it turns out, Hoff wasn't any old white male; he was in fact grand dragon of the New York Ku Klux Klan. He was spotted at a Klan rally in upstate New York and a witness had called his employer.

A brief filed on behalf of Third World Interim by the American Jewish Congress, or AJC, argued that, contrary to Hoff's assertion, he was not fired because he was white but because of his political beliefs. "And it's not illegal to fire someone for his political beliefs," explains AJC lawyer Marc Stern. "It may not always be nice, but it's not illegal."

A federal court agreed with that argument, but one question remains unanswered: Why would a KKK grand dragon want a job that helped to promote minorities?

"I guess it paid well," Stern speculated.

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