Harvard's Jewish Problem
During and after World
War I, American Jewry became the target of anti-Semitism by a variety of social groups, including
the Ku
Klux Klan and various immigration
restriction advocates. Ivy League universities
were no exception, and several of these venerable
schools moved to restrict Jewish enrollment
during the 1920s. Some Jewish students at
Harvard, the bellwether in American education,
did not take admission restrictions lying
down.
Nativism and intolerance
among segments of the white Protestant population
were aimed at both Eastern European Jews
and Southern European Catholics. In higher
education, Jews were particularly resented.
By 1919, about 80% of the students at New
York's Hunter and City colleges were Jews,
and 40% at Columbia. Jews at Harvard tripled
to 21% of the freshman class in 1922 from
about 7% in 1900. Ivy League Jews won a disproportionate
share of academic prizes and election to
Phi Beta Kappa but were widely regarded as
competitive, eager to excel academically
and less interested in extra-curricular activities
such as organized sports. Non-Jews accused
them of being clannish, socially unskilled
and either unwilling or unable to“fit
in.”
In 1922, Harvard's president,
A. Lawrence Lowell, proposed a quota on the
number of Jews gaining admission to the university.
Lowell was convinced that Harvard could only
survive if the majority of its students came
from old American stock.
Lowell argued that cutting
the number of Jews at Harvard to a maximum
of 15% would be good for the Jews, because
limits would prevent further anti-Semitism.
Lowell reasoned, “The anti-Semitic feeling
among the students is increasing, and it
grows in proportion to the increase in the
number of Jews. If their number should become
40% of the student body, the race feeling
would become intense.”
The fight against Jewish
quotas at Harvard was led by Harry Starr,
an undergraduate and the son of a Russian
immigrant who established the first kosher
butcher shop in Gloversville, New York. As
president of the Menorah Society, Harvard's
major Jewish student organization, Starr
organized a series of meetings between Jewish
and non-Jewish students, faculty and administrators
to discuss Lowell's proposed quota. The meetings
were frequently heated and painful. As Starr
recalled in an account published in 1985,
which can be found at the American Jewish
Historical Society, “We learned that
it was numbers that mattered; bad or good,
too many Jews were not liked. Rich or poor,
brilliant or dull, polished or crude—[the
problem was] too many Jews.”
Starr insisted that there
could be no “Jewish problem” at
Harvard or in America. Starr observed, “The
Jew cannot look on himself as a problem....
Born or naturalized in this country, he is
a full American.” If admitting all qualified
Jews to Harvard meant a change in the traditional
social composition of the student body, so
be it. Starr refused to hear any hokum about
'pure' American stock as a way to limit Jewish
admissions to Harvard. “Tolerance,” he
wrote in the Menorah Journal, “is
not to be administered like castor oil, with
eyes closed and jaws clenched.”
Lowell received a great
deal of public criticism, particularly in
the Boston press. Harvard's overseers appointed
a 13-member committee, which included three
Jews, to study the university's “Jewish
problem.” The committee rejected a Jewish
quota but agreed that “geographic diversity” in
the student body was desirable. Harvard had
been using a competitive exam to determine
who was admitted, and urban Jewish students
were scoring highly on the exam. Urban public
schools such as Boston Latin Academy intensely
prepared their students, many of whom were
Jewish, to pass Harvard's admissions test.
The special committee recommended that the
competitive exam be replaced by an admissions
policy that accepted top-ranking students
from around the nation, regardless of exam
scores. By 1931, because students from urban
states were replaced by students from Wyoming
and North Dakota who ranked in the top of
their high school classes, Harvard's Jewish
ranks were cut back to 15% of the student
body.
In the late 1930s, James
Bryant Conant, Lowell's successor as president,
eased the geographic distribution requirements,
and Jewish students were once again admitted
primarily on the basis of merit. Harry Starr,
who lived until 1992, became a national Jewish
communal leader, including a term of service
as a trustee of the American Jewish Historical
Society. Professionally, he became the director
of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, which
was established by a Jewish congressman from
Gloversville and which over the years has
given many generous gifts to Harvard. Harry
Starr held no grudges against the university
which in 1922 he lovingly battled on behalf
of his fellow Jews.
Source: American Jewish Historical Society |