The Jewish Problem in U.S. Medical 0 0 ~ Education, 1920-1955 ::, 0 OJ C. (1) EDWARD C. HALPERIN C. g 3 N 1959 Saul Jarcho conceded: "it must be admitted ~it-----~u that the evidence of d1scrimmatory admission prac­ tice by medical schools [directed against Jews] is not of the precision or concreteness which the historian requrres." 1 In this essay I argue that, on the contrary, the nature and extent of U.S. medical school adm1s- s10n quotas during the first half of the twentieth century can be thoroughly documented. Leaders of U.S. medical schools rationalized their objections to the adnuss1on ofJewish students on the grounds of proportional representation as well as the classic anti-Semitic ca­ nards of Jewish defensiveness, bookishness, poor manual dexterity, and avarice. The Jewish community, in response, was divided between those who accepted the quota and those who vigorously fought back. Here I examine the historical evidence concerrung the quota, how it was justified, and the nature of the Jewish community's response. A QUOTA IS PUT IN PLACE Twentieth-century United States quotas restricting the access ofJew­ ish students and physicians to medical school and postgraduate training 1. Saul Jarcho, "Medical educanon m the Uruted Stace.s- 1910-1956," J Mount Sinai Hosp ., 1959, z6, 339-85, p 358 Th1S project was supported by a grant from the Josiah Charles Trent Foundanon Suzanne Porter of the Trent Library, Duke Uruversity Medical Center, rruide many helpful sugges­ noru. Rabbi John Fnedman helped clanfy my understanding of Rabbi Moms Lazeron and the non-Zmmst movement. The staffi of the Amencan Jewish Archives m Cmcmnan, Oh.10; the Archives of the JeW1Sh H1Stoncal Soaety of Metrowest, Whippany, New Jersey, the SpeCJal Collecooru Secooru of the library of the Uruversity of Medicine and Dennstry of New Jersey, Newark, New Jersey; Southern H1Stoncal CoUecnon, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and the H1Stoncal Center for the Health Sciences of the Uruversity of Mlclugan, Ann Arbor, M1ch1gan, were very helpful. C 200 I OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS ISSN 0022-5045 VOLUME 56 PAGES 140 TO 167 [ 140 ] Halpen'n : Jews in U.S. Medical Education 141 were a response to the massive wave of Russian Jewish immigrants at the beginrung of the twentieth century and the interest of these munigrants and their children in medical education. From r 880 to 0 the begrnning of the First World War in 1914, two million Russian 0 ~ Jews immigrated to the United States, joining about 400,000 Jews :::, 0 OJ already in the country. Following World War I and the Red Scare, C. Cl) the United States saw a rise in nativist feeling and a growth in C. 0 organizations hke the Ku Klux Klan that targeted popula• on groups ""3 2 ::,- with foreign roots. Overt anti-Jewish prejudice in the academic -ff community in the United States reached its zeruth when the children g:(/) of these eastern European Jewish immigrants began to enter college £ C. in large numbers. By 1902, for example, 90% of the undergraduates Cl) 3 at City College of New York were Jewish. 3 i:i" 0 C From 1900 to 1922 the proportion of Jewish students at Harvard ""O (") College rose from 7 percent to 21 percent. President A. Lawrence 0 3 Lowell, along with some members of Harvard's governing boards, "§; 3 OJ alumni, and faculty, noted this increase with grave concern. Lowell (/) Ql disapproved of unnugrants who fatled to merge into his image of ;l. o· mainstream America. Lowell had been an officer of the Boston-based io Immigration Restricoon League and was concerned that superior e:ui ~ Anglo-Saxon culture nught be undermined by excessive Jewish repre­ .i,. 0 sentation in the college.4 In 1922 Lowell told Harvard's graduates that ::;j .i,. 0-, "if every college in the country would take a linuted proportion of 0-, u, CD O" '< 2 Ceo) Roth, A Short H1Jtory of the Jewish people (Hartford, U.K : Harttnorc House, z Cl) 1969) pp 386-89; Abraham Leon Sachar, A H1Jtory of the Jews , 5th ed (New York. Al&-ed ~ A Knopf, 1967), Bernard Maron, A Hutory of Juda1Jm, 2 vols (New Yorlc· BasJc Books, -< Q 1974), II , 319-48; Seymour Rossel, joumry tlzrough J=h Hwory The Age of Fa,th and the 7'" Age of Freedom (New Yorlc Berman House, 1983), pp. 95-97; Rufus Lcam (pscud for s: Cl) Israel Goldberg] , 771e]ews m Ammca A H1Jtory (Cleveland World Pubwhmg Co, 1954), C. p 125 ; Paul Borchsemus, 77u History of the Jews, 5 vols (New York. Simon and Schuster, o· Q!. 1965) IV, 149-76 0 3. Sheny Gorelick , Cay College and the Jewislz Poor (New BrunsWick, NJ Rutgers Q_ io Umvers1ty Press, 1981) , p. 85, Heywood Broun and George Bntt, Christians Only A Study co m fujudlle (New Yorlc: Vanguard Press, 1931), p 72; Kenneth CoU1ns, Go and uam The Cl) C lntemat1otu1/ Story of Jews and Med1e1tll'. m Scotland (Aberdeen: Aberdeen Umvers1ty Press, (/) 1988) , p. 100 ~ 0 4 Seymour Mamn L1psct and Everett Carl Ladd, Jr. , "JeWJSh academics m the Uruted :::, N States," m MarshaU Sklare, ed , The Jew m Ammcan Socuty (New Yorlc Berman House, co 1974), pp. 255-89, M:ucu G Synott, "Ano-Senunsm wd Amencan uruversines: did quotas L C foUow the Jews' " m DaVId A Gerber, cd Ant1-Scm1t1sm in Ammcan History (Urbana­ '< Champa1gn Uruvemty of lllinoJS Press, 1986), pp. 233-70, Henry Aaron Yeomans, Abbott N 0 unvrrna Lowd/ 1856-1943 (Cambndge, Mass Harvard Umversity Press, 1948), p 209; N ~ Leonard Dmnerstem, Ant1Jmlll1Jm m America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p 85 . .. I 42 Journal of the History of Medicine Vol . 56, April 2001 Jews we should go a long way toward elirrunating race feelings among students and, as these students passed out into the world, eliminatmg 1t in the community."5 Lowell suggested a quota and rationalized his 0 views by arguing that a large Jewish presence on the campus would 0 ~ increase anti-Semitism in the student body and cause Genttle students :J 0 Ill not to attend Harvard.6 a. (I) a. Harvard's Board of Overseers appointed a committee to consider a the quota proposal. A faculty committee recommended that "in the 3 admirustration of rules for admiss10n Harvard College maintains its -s:::r traditional policy of freedom from discrimination on grounds of race g:en 7 C) or religion." The faculty committee voted against a formal quota, Ill a. 8 (I) as did the board. An unofficial program of educational access restnc­ 3 o· tion was, however, adopted and spread to many colleges, uruversities, 0 C and professional schools. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Co­ 'O 8 lumbia Uruversity, also supported a policy of "selective adnussions" 3 to limit the admission of Jews m favor of his perception of an elite ~ 3 9 Ill "natural consti tuency." Butler said that he had "not elirrunated boys en CJ because they were Jews and do not propose to do so. We have honestly ~ ff CD attempted to elimmate the lowest grade of applicant and it turns out c:;; that a good many of the low grade men are New York Jews." 10 ~ ~ The pressure of Jewish applicants was particularly strong among .j:,. £2 potential medical students. In 1927 Dean Hugh Cabot of the Univer­ ---J .j:,. 0) sity ofMidugan advised Uruvers1ty President C.C. Little that, because 0) U1 <O new medical students were adnutted based on academic qualifications cr '< and because there were so many Jewish applicants of European origm z (I) with high qualifications, the school was gomg to be overrun with ~ °d undemables. Cabot responded by imposing racial and religious quotas. ;,. He put this mto practice by reqmring that applicants appear in Ann s: (I) a. Arbor for an interview or for an alumni or faculty interview in New ff 9!.. 0 5 New York T,me.s, 17 June 1922, pp 1, J For a detailed dlscuss1on see Synott (n. 4) Q. CD and Marc1.1 Graham Synott, 771t Ha!f-Opaud Door Dumm1nat1011 and Admus1ons al Harvard, co Yale, and Pnnctton (Westport Greenwood Prcs.1, 1979), pp 58-80 (I) C 6 Yeomans, (n 4) Lo=ll, pp. 209-1 8 en 7 Quoted m Jarcho (n 1) , p 358 ~ 0 8. New York Times, 1 June I 922, p. 6; 2 June 1922, p 1, 5 June I 922, p 1, 19 September :J N 1922, p J ; 1 o Apnl 1923 , p I , Report of tire Prwdent and Treasum of Harvard College, co I9zz-19z3 (umbndge, 1924), p. 32ff, Synort (n 4), pp. 234-6o '­ c 9 Broun and Bntt,. (n J) C/rnst1ans Only, pp. 102-4, T. Bender, New York !nu/lea A '< N History of /111'1/eaual 1.Jft i11 Nnv York C11y from 1750 to 1/1t &ginning of Our Own font (New 0 York: Alfred A Knopf, 1987), pp 289-292 N ~ 10 Harold S Wechsler, 77,e Qual,fred S111dtnr A Hutory of Seltellvt College Admusron rn Amenca (New York: Wiley, 1977), pp. 161-62. Halperin : Jews in U.S. Medical Education 143 York, Denver, or Los Angeles. 11 This personal interview was used at Michigan and other schools to exclude Jews on the basis of their havmg an unacceptable personality. One medical school dean con­ 0 0 curred on the usefulness of this technique in Justifying Jewish exclu­ :;: sion: "It is a fairly tenable fact that . personal acceptability and :::, 0a, C. magnetism . 1s less prevalent among the Jewish class, from which (1) by far the large number ofJewish applicants is bemg recruited, than C.