A short paragraph from 1921 in which the editors of The Nation leveled a charge at the admission departments for both New York University and Columbia for having taken steps that would reduce the number of Jewish students admitted each year.
Although Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856 – 1943) enjoyed a lengthy tenure as the president of Harvard University (1909 – 1933), his reign there was not entirely free from controversy. One of the more unpleasant policies associated with his term was one in which he stated that Jewish enrollment to the university should be confined to an admissions quota that should not exceed the 15-percent mark.
An article concerning a nasty spat between Yale Jews and Yale gentiles, and when all was said and done and the dust had settled, no one came out looking terribly intelligent. This is an article about Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856 – 1943) who attempted to avoid the topic concerning his deep desire to admit Jews by quota and keep their numbers limited to a particularly low proportion.
In 1923 President Lowell came up with a politically palatable solution: he limited the size of the incoming class to one thousand, which meant incorporating an evaluation of each candidate's non-academic qualities into the admissions decision. How "manly" was the candidate, for instance? How congenial and "clubbable"? What promise, what potential for future leadership?
Over time meritocracy won out - until Asians began applying in large numbers...
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