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YALE'S LIMIT ON JEWISH ENROLLMENT LASTED UNTIL EARLY 1960'S, BOOK SAYS

YALE'S LIMIT ON JEWISH ENROLLMENT LASTED UNTIL EARLY 1960'S, BOOK SAYS
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March 4, 1986, Section B, Page 1Buy Reprints
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Not until the early 1960's did Yale University end an informal admissions policy that restricted Jewish enrollment to about 10 percent, according to a new book published by Yale University Press.

The book, ''Joining the Club,'' which began as a sophomore term paper by Dan A. Oren, a 1979 Yale graduate, documents anti-Semitism reaching from fraternity brothers to board trustees. Much of the research is based on university documents.

One document, a folder now in the university archives, labeled ''Jewish Problem,'' contains a memo from the admissions chairman of 1922 urging limits on ''the alien and unwashed element.'' The next year, the admissions committee enacted the ''Limitation of Numbers'' policy, an informal quota. Jewish enrollment was held to about 10 percent for four decades.

''There were vicious, ugly forms of discrimination at Yale, as with the larger society,'' the current Yale University Secretary, John A. Wilkinson, said. ''It's part of our history, and we should face up to it.''

The book, he said, has uncovered ''what we've all suspected and some have known for a long time.''

The restrictive policy was phased out beginning in 1960 when the Yale President, A. Whitney Griswold, issued directives stating that an applicant's religion should have no place in the admissions process. In the next few years, the admissions board was changed to reflect greater ethnic diversity. Today, Jewish students account for about 30 percent of the Yale enrollment, far greater than the proportion of Jews in the United States population, which is listed at 2.5 percent in the 1985 American Jewish Year Book.

Mr. Oren, now in residence at the Yale Medical School, grew up in Milwaukee, the son of Israeli immigrants. When he arrived on campus in 1975, he said, he was perplexed by rumors of past discrimination here.

''I've never experienced anti-Semitism,'' he said, ''and I couldn't believe that Yale ever had that problem.''

But his research found that an earlier Yale - whose university seal includes Hebrew words that commemorate the ancient Israelites - was rife with anti-Semitism, as were other Ivy League schools.

''The Jewish Problem continues to call for the utmost care and tact,'' said the annual report of the Board of Admissions in 1945. ''The proportion of Jews among the candidates who are both scholastically qualified for admission and young enough to matriculate has somewhat increased and remains too large for comfort.'' Breaking a Tradition

Not until 1946 would a Jew become a full professor at Yale College. Not until 1947 did the Corbey Court eating club for law students accept Jews, finally extending membership to a small group that included Robert M. Morgenthau, now the Manhattan District Attorney. And not until 1965 did a Jew become a member of the Yale Corporation, when William Horowitz, a banker in New Haven, was elected to the board that sets university policy.

The era of anti-Jewish sentiment at Yale, Mr. Oren said, broke from a tradition of open enrollment and tolerance that had guided the school from its inception in 1701 through most of the 19th century. The small number of Jews on campus enjoyed equal access to clubs and classroom, he said.

But after 1900, when the children of a new wave of Jewish immigrants began attending college, many Eastern schools grew uncomfortable.

At Harvard College, the proportion of Jews had risen to 21.5 percent in 1921. At Yale, the number had grown to nearly 8 percent. Avoiding Suspicion

The Harvard University President, A. Lawrence Lowell, publicly urged adoption of a quota system for Jews in the early 1920's. But when vociferous criticism emerged from both inside and outside the university, Mr. Lowell was forced to retract his proposal.

Although precise records are not kept, enrollment of Jewish students at Harvard today is about 20 percent, said Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, director of the Hillel Foundation at Harvard and Radcliffe.

After the Harvard affair, Yale and other private universities moved to keep admissions practices out of the public eye, the Yale documents indicate.

At Yale, admissions officials settled on an approach that would not arouse suspicion. The ''Limitation of Numbers'' policy, announced publicly as a measure aimed at paring total enrollment, sought specifically, but privately, to reduce the number of Jewish students.

In 1927, when an alumnus complained in a letter that his contributions were being used to educate ''Yids,'' the associate treasurer and comptroller, Thomas W. Farnham, wrote back: ''It will interest you to know that we are making every effort to remedy the condition.''

The remedy worked too slowly for Francis Parsons, a fellow of the Yale Corporation, who became angered when he noticed a number of Jewish names listed among the freshman class in 1929.

''This list reads like some of the 'Begat' portions of the Old Testament,'' he wrote to Robert Corwin, the admissions chairman and architect of the limitation policy. New Breed of Student

By 1930, Jewish students in the freshman class accounted for 8.2 percent of the total, the smallest proportion in nine years.

A change in climate at Yale would emerge during World War II, Mr. Oren wrote, when discriminatory practice began losing credibility.

Moreover, passage of the G.I. Bill, which covered the costs of college tuition for returning veterans, brought an education at Yale within financial reach of a new breed of students. These men, many of whose backgrounds differed from those of Yale students, had fought against racial and religious oppression abroad and were less tolerant of prejudice at home.

In 1948, Yale ceased automatically segregating housing between Christians and Jews, blacks and whites. Still, the number of Jewish students remained relatively fixed at about 10 percent. Change began to take hold with the arrival in 1959 of Rabbi Richard J. Israel, director of the Hillel Foundation on campus. From his own investigation, Rabbi Israel learned of the enduring quota system.

He turned to the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., the university chaplain, who took the matter to the university president, Mr. Griswold. The president dictated a memo to himself on April 5, 1960, pledging to make it his ''duty'' to see that racial and religous factors would no longer serve as determinants in admission.

''Like many other colleges, Yale has reflected the values and principals of a wider society,'' Mr. Wilkinson said. ''Let us hope that if those societal values go the other way again, Yale will not follow them.''

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: YALE'S LIMIT ON JEWISH ENROLLMENT LASTED UNTIL EARLY 1960'S, BOOK SAYS. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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