Stanford University apologized Wednesday for its efforts to suppress the enrollment of Jewish students in the 1950s and its denial of the suppression in the years that followed.
Stanford University president Mark Tessier Lavigne apologized on behalf of the university for “this horrific anti-Semitic activity” after the 75-page report documenting the activity was released.
“These actions were wrong,” writes Dr. Tessier Lavigne. “They were doing damage, and they hadn’t been recognized for too long.”
Several colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, restricted Jewish admissions from the 1920s to the 1960s, but Stanford has long denied rumors of similar practices. I was.
In January, Stanford University investigated the then-current “claims” that the university had quotas to limit the number of Jewish students it accepted in the 1950s, ruling out the life of Jewish students on campus. Created a task force to recommend ways to improve.
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The 13-member task force, which included trustees, alumni, students, and university faculty, was led by Ali Y. Kelman, Professor of Education and Jewish Studies.
The task force said its two key findings were evidence that Stanford attempted to limit the number of Jewish students admitted in the 1950s, and that parents, alumni, and outsiders raised concerns in the 1950s and 1960s. Investigators said the trustees were evidence that management “regularly misled” them. The possibility that the university was involved in such conduct.
The report, citing a February 1953 memo, said that Ricksford Snyder, then director of admissions at Stanford University, was concerned about the number of Jewish students admitted. .
The memo, written by Frederick Glover, a former assistant to university president Wallace Sterling, said Snyder identified two Southern California high schools with students who were “95 to 98 percent Jewish.” . Accepting “a small number of Jewish applicants” from these schools would result in a “flood of Jewish applicants,” the memo said.
“Ricks felt the matter was packed with dynamite and he wanted you. [Sterling] He says he is forced to ignore our policy of not paying attention to an applicant’s race or religion, so he cannot know about it. I wrote that I approved the
Stanford University reported that in the fall of 1953, enrollment at the two high schools named in the memo, Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School, experienced a “dramatic decline.” “At the time, no other school had such a steep decline in enrollment at Stanford,” the document said.
Glover’s notes were first revealed by Charles Petersen, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University. While researching a book in progress on the history of meritocracy, Dr. Petersen found notes and other documents in the university archives containing the word “Jewish” in his admissions file. rice field.
“I am happy that Stanford University took my substack seriously,” Dr. Petersen said in an interview after the report was published.
He said the university chose to focus its research narrowly on admission anti-Semitism, but he also asked how the practice relates more broadly to racial inequality in schools. I wanted to investigate what was going on.
“Stanford University wanted to keep the university as a safe place for white Anglo-Saxons,” he said. “If it had been any other group, Black applicants, Latino applicants, Asian applicants, once the numbers reached a certain point, the university would have done the same.”
The task force also provided recommendations to improve campus life for Jewish students, including the creation of a permanent advisory board to address current needs. Dr. Tessier-Lavigne wrote that the university accepted the recommendation and that “historic anti-Semitic prejudices documented by the task force” were not part of today’s school admissions process.
Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, executive director of the Jewish student group Hillel at Stanford University, said the university’s apology and commitment to future actions made the moment particularly meaningful.
“This feels like what we call teshuvah, or redemption. .
Rabbi Kirschner said he has heard from alumni who have complained about quotas since coming to Stanford six years ago, and that the existence of these practices had been denied. He said the action was effective for the Jewish community at the school.
“I think this reflects how we want everyone to feel at Stanford,” she said. “And I hope this will serve as a model for how other communities who may have similar stories and concerns can be addressed.”