STUDENT DIVERSITY at the BIG THREE: Changes at Harvard, Yale
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place frontmatter pg1 eps (please delete this text box before importing image) First published 2013 by Transaction Publishers Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2013 by Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2012039362 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Synnott, Marcia Graham. Student diversity at the big three : changes at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton since the 1920s / Marcia Graham Synnott. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4128-1461-4 1. Harvard University—Admission—History. 2. Yale University— Admission—History. 3. Princeton University—Admission—History. 4. Minorities—Education (Higher)—United States. 5. Educational equalization—United States. I. Title. LD2126.S95 2013 378.74—dc23 2012039362 ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-1461-4 (hbk) To the students of Harvard (and Radcliff e), Yale, and Princeton, past, present, and future Contents List of Tables ix Acknowledgments xi I. Introduction: Historical Perspectives on Admissions Policies at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities 1 II. From Margins to Mainstream: Jewish Students and Faculty at the Big Th ree 65 III. Hesitant Courtships: Coeducation at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton 113 IV. Affi rmative Action and the Pursuit of Racial Diversity at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities, 1960–2012 177 V. Invisible No Longer: Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”; Return of the ROTC; and Inclusion of LGBTQ Students and Students with Disabilities 247 VI. Conclusion: Campus Protests and New Elites at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1960s–2012 299 Bibliography 331 Index 355 List of Tables Table 2.1 Religious Census of Harvard Students from 1921–1922 to 1936–1937, Tabulated from Voluntary Responses by Harvard Undergraduate, Graduate, and Professional School Students to Survey Distributed by Phillips Brooks House Annually as of October 80 Table 2.2 Denominational Preferences of Harvard College Students for the Academic Year 1936–1937 Submitted to “A National Survey of the Religious Preferences of Students and Faculties in the Colleges and Universities of America for the Year 1936–1937” 81 Table 3.1 Percentages of Female Undergraduates Enrolled in Princeton by Fall Semester 151 Table 3.2 Percentages of Female Undergraduates Enrolled in Yale College by Fall Semester 151 Table 4.1 Recipients of Bachelor’s Degrees by Gender and Race at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale: 1975–1976 180 Table 4.2 Harvard College and Radcliff e College Admissions Statistics for the Class of 1980 188 Table 4.3 Harvard College (and Radcliff e College until 2000) Admissions Statistics for the Class of 1995 190 Table 4.4 African-American Students (Men only until 1969), Matriculating at Yale by Class Year, 1964–1997 196 ix Table 4.5 Yale: University-wide Enrollments by Ethnicity in 2001–2002 197 Table 4.6 Percentages of African-American Women and Men Matriculating at Princeton, 1969–1970 to 1973–1974 200 Table 4.7 African-American Students (Men only until 1969), Matriculating at Princeton by Class Year 201 Table 4.8 Number and Percentage of Undergraduates Enrolled by Race at Princeton in the Fall of 1995 202 Table 4.9 Princeton Undergraduate Enrollment, 2000–2001 203 Table 4.10 Minority Admissions (Men and Women) to the Harvard Class of 2004 207 x Acknowledgments Student Diversity at the Big Three: Changes at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton since the 1920s is my companion volume to Th e Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900–1970 . Foreword by Arthur S. Link. Contributions in American History, no. 80. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1979). In 2010, it was republished by Transaction Publishers with my new introduction, which refl ects some of my more recent research. As universities lifted time restrictions on presidential and other offi cial papers, I have revisited the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton archives and other libraries to conduct research on affi rmative action, quo- tas, and coeducation. I have published part of this research in one journal article and three essays: (1) “Th e Evolving Diversity Rationale in University Admissions: From Regents v. Bakke to the University of Michigan Cases,” in the Cornell Law Review , Symposium issue on “Revisiting Brown v. Board of Education: Fifty Years of Legal and Social Debate” 90:2 (January 2005): 463–504; (2) “Anti-Semitism and American Universities: Did Quotas Fol- low the Jews,?” in Anti-Semitism in American History , ed. David A. Gerber (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986), pp. 233–71; (3) “A Friendly Rivalry: Yale and Princeton Universities Pursue Parallel Paths to Coeducation,” in Going Coed: Women’s Experiences in Formerly Men’s Colleges and Universities, 1950–2000 , ed. Leslie Miller-Bernal and Susan L. Poulson (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), pp. 111–150; and (4) “Th e Changing `Harvard Student’: Ethnicity, Race, and Gender,” in Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliff e History , ed. Laurel Th atcher Ulrich (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC, 2004), pp. 195–211 (an online version is available through http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn- 3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAA (accessed December 1, 2012). Finally, to complete the research for Student Diversity at the Big Th ree , I have made additional visits to the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton archives in 2010. 1 At diff erent stages of my research, several historians shared their insights and off ered encouragement: Morton Keller and Phyllis Keller; John R. Thelin, Harold Stuart Wechsler, and Roger Geiger. I also acknowledge the positive role of the late Professor Irving Louis Horowitz in urging me xi Student Diversity at the Big Th ree to write a companion volume to Th e Half-Opened Door for Transaction Publishers. Th ough the research and writing took longer than either of us expected, I hope that he would be pleased with Student Diversity at the Big Th ree . I want to thank university archivists who over many years have answered my inquiries and directed me to pertinent sources: Mr. Daniel J. Linke, Uni- versity Archivist and Curator of Public Policy Papers, Princeton University Library; Ms. Judith A. Schiff , Senior Research Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library; and Mr. Harley P. Holden, former Harvard University Archivist (1971–2003), as well as longtime staff members Robin McElheny, Associate University Archivist for Programs, and Timothy Driscoll, Senior Reference Archivist. I also want to thank Angelico Razon, student president of the Phillips Brooks House Association (2007–2008), for granting me the permission to examine the statistics on religious affi liations voluntar- ily submitted by Harvard students in the 1920s and 1930s in PBHA’s records that are deposited at the Harvard University Archives and also Carolyn Chou, student president of PBHA (2012–2013), for permission to use these statistics in Student Diversity at the Big Th ree . Th e author gratefully acknowledges the permission granted by each of the following to quote excerpts from the presidential and other offi cial records as well as from certain published materials in their archives: Daniel J. Linke, University Archivist and Curator of Public Policy Papers, Princeton Univer- sity Library; Susan Gibbons, University Librarian, Yale University; Virginia A. Hunt, Associate University Archivist for Collection Development and Acting Associate University Archivist for Records Management at Harvard University; the President and Fellows of Harvard College; and Ellen M. Shea, Head of Public Services, Schlesinger Library, Radcliff e Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. Note 1. Seven of my other articles and essays, listed in the order of their publica- tion, have also contributed to my thinking on discrimination and university admissions policies: (1) “Th e ‘Big Th ree’ and the Harvard-Princeton Football Break, 1926-1934,” Journal of Sport History Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer 1976), pp. 188–202; (2) “Th e Admission and Assimilation of Minority Students at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900-1970,” History of Education Quar- terly Vol. 19, No. 3 (Fall 1979), pp. 285–304; (3) “Th e Half-Opened Door: Researching Admissions Discrimination at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton,” American Archivist Vol. 45, No. 2 (Spring 1982), pp. 175–187; (4) “Jerome Davis Greene,” American National Biography , John A. Garraty and Mark A. Carnes, General Editors. Published under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies. Vol. 9. Gilbert-Hand (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1999), pp. 527–28; (5) “Ivy League,” Dictionary of American History 3rd edition, Stanley I. Kutler, Editor in Chief (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002), pp. 449–50; (6) “Numerus Clausus (United States),” xii Acknowledgments in Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution , ed. Richard Levy (ABC-CLIO, 2005), pp. 514–15; and (7) my review of Jerome Karabel, Th e Chosen: Th e Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Boston, New York: Houghton Miffl in, 2005), American Journal of Education 113, no. 4 (August 2007): 663–70 . xiii I Introduction: Historical Perspectives on Admissions Policies at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities In Th e End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time, 1912–1917 , Henry F. May described “three central doctrines” of American civilization widely accepted in 1912.