Hourglass 2021-22 Issue 3 Online

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THE HOURGLASS | MARCH 2022
centerfold| 7
HOW UNIVERSITIES CHANGED
THE WORLD OF ADMISSIONS
MARIN HORWITZ
Sports Editor
Harvard’s “Jewish quota” limited the proportion of admitted Jewish students in the 1920s.
But discrimination in the college admissions process is still under scrutiny.
College prep is the reason Baldwin
was created in the first place.
But looking into the past of elite
college admissions processes
reveals a history of anti-Semitic policies
designed specifically to limit Jewish
populations at these institutions.
Harvard will be the main focus of
this article because it was and still is, the
forerunner of elite American postsecondary
education. The current admissions system
was crafted by many schools, but none were
as influential as Harvard. Additionally,
although the focus of the article targeted
discrimination against Jewish populations,
the policies in a place prohibited virtually
all minorities from having access to higher
education at the time.
According to the Library of Congress,
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
hundreds of thousands of immigrants came
to the United States from Eastern and
Southern Europe, specifically Catholics
and Jews. As a result, new movements
against immigrants gained traction in a
predominantly white, Protestant United
States.
All during this time, people known as
WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants)
who ran schools like Harvard noticed the
major influx of Jews into their student
populations. According to Jerome Karabel’s
book The Chosen: The Hidden History of
Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale,
and Princeton, Jewish students made up
21.5% of Harvard’s student population in
1922, a significant increase from only 7%
in 1900.
According to a 2021 amicus brief
for a pending case on Harvard admissions
written by Jonathon Vogel, Harvard
considered Jewish students “repulsive
to wealthy Protestant families” and was
therefore “concerned that a large Jewish
student population would discourage
Protestant students from choosing Harvard
over other comparable colleges, such as
Yale and Princeton.”
Enter Harvard President Abbott
Lawrence Lowell, the namesake of Lowell
Hall. He decided to take responsibility
for eliminating his university’s “Jewish
Problem,” as it was commonly called.
According to Karabel, Lowell’s
solution was to impose a quota that would
limit Jews to 15% of the student body.
Lowell proposed this plan at a faculty
Baldwin students enjoy
the facilities and resources
provided by Anne Frank
Library and Ludington Library.
meeting on May 23, 1922, but it failed to
pass with a 64 - 41 vote against it.
So Lowell proposed a new, subtler
plan to the faculty that involved the
creation of a special admissions committee
whose “primary object… was to consider
the question of Jews.”
He then created new application
questions, such as “Religious Preference,”
“Maiden Name of Mother,” “Birthplace
of Father”, and “What change, if any, has
been made since birth in your own name or
that of your father?” These questions were
blatant attempts to identify Jews in order to
effectively limit their admission.
Lowell also changed the admissions
process and rubric. Suddenly, admittance
depended on highly subjective qualities like
“character” and “personality”, which, as
Karabel wrote, “is a policy that seem[s]…
to be an open invitation to prejudice and
discrimination.”
Lowell’s plan worked. According to
Vogel, “the percentage of Jewish students
in the freshman class fell from over 28
percent in 1925 to 15 percent in 1926…In
fact, for the next 20 years, the percentage
of Jewish students remained at about 15
percent.”
Although Harvard no longer
discriminates against Jewish applicants
as overtly and intensely as it did during
Lowell’s presidency, it still considers
character and personality, a system which
some contend perpetuates discrimination
in the admission process to this day.
Students for Fair Admission Inc v.
Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College
is a pending Supreme Court case in which
Students for Fair Admission Inc (SFFA)
alleges that Harvard’s admissions process
discriminates against Asian American
applicants.
SFFA’s petition for a writ of certiorari
cites research by Harvard’s Office of
Institutional Research (OIR) that found
“evidence that Asians are disadvantaged in
the admissions process and that Harvard’s
‘personal rating’ [is] to blame”.
Statistics reveal that “Asian Americans
receive the lowest personal ratings among
all races, and the negative relationship
between Asian American identity and the
personal rating is statistically significant.”
Harvard admissions officials
contend that race does not affect personal
ratings. Separately, many groups have
criticized SFFA’s case for threatening to
dismantle affirmative action in college
admissions more generally.
Elite universities like Harvard have
become some of the most famous and
prestigious schools in the world, with tens
of thousands of applicants a year. Although
the “Jewish Quota” has faded, the system it
was built on remains and is still the center
of critical discussion and debate today.