Last week saw the indictment of celebrities, financiers, coaching and admissions personnel, entrance exam administrators, and others, all of whom participated in a college admissions cheating and bribery scandal led by William “Rick” Singer. This is by no means the first time that college admissions has been shown to have a dark side, including a long history of quotas and other procedures meant to limit admission of Jews and other minorities. In fact, the addition of interviews, letters of recommendation, and a focus on qualities other than high school academic performance (including extra-curricular activities, particularly participation in sports) goes back 100 years, as part of an effort to limit the number of Jews admitted to Harvard and other prestigious institutions. In 1922, Harvard University added a question to be asked of applicants which was clearly intended to help identify Jewish students: “What change, if any, has been made since birth in your own name or that of your father? (Explain fully).” Which of the following are also real examples of stories from a century ago regarding efforts to limit Jewish acceptance to Ivy League schools?
Yale 1 by SubtlePanda is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
A. Francis Parsons, who was a fellow of the Yale Corporation, noticed a large number of Jewish names listed among the Yale freshman class of 1929, leading him to write the following to the chair of admissions at the university: “This list reads like some of the ‘Begat’ portions of the Old Testament.”
B. In 1927, a Yale alumnus wrote a letter complaining that his donations to the school were being used to educate “Yids.” The school’s associate treasurer responded saying, “It will interest you to know that we are making every effort to remedy the condition.’’
C. In 1922, Harvard’s president, A. Lawrence Lowell, proposed a quota to lower the number of Jews gaining admission to the university. Lowell argued that this would benefit the Jews at Harvard because “The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews.”
D. There is a folder from the early 1920’s in Yale University’s archive labeled “Jewish Problem.” Among the documents in the folder is a memo from the university’s admissions chairman urging a limit on the acceptance of “the alien and unwashed element.’’
E. In 1922, the Yale Board of Trustees voted in secret to enact a quota on Jewish students, and then discussed ways to ensure that this would not become public information. As part of their coverup, they decided to take actions which would imply that Yale was friendly to Jews despite the reality. These included adding the Hebrew words “Urim v’Thummim,” meaning “Light and Truth” to the official Yale logo, as well as giving their students the nickname “Elis,” claiming that this was a way to give honor to the people of Elijah the Prophet. In a further effort to create a positive association between Yale and the Jewish community, the university purchased the Yale Lock Company and renamed it Yale Lox.