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The Admission and Assimilation of Minority Students at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900–1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Marcia G. Synnott
Marcia G. Synnott*
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
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Extract

Access to higher education was and is an essential factor in the economic and social mobility of minority groups within the United States. Prominent among the groups to take advantage of educational opportunities were Catholics and Jews, the children and grandchildren of the Irish immigration of the mid-19th century and of the “New Immigration” from eastern and southern Europe at the century's end. Today, however, other groups — blacks, Hispanic-Americans, Indians, and Orientals — are knocking on the door of admissions offices at colleges, universities, and professional schools. It is still too soon to assess their rate of educational mobility and determine whether it will parallel or even exceed that of Jews and Catholics. The role of quotas, both discriminatory and benign, have played a crucial role in retarding and encouraging the educational mobility of both the earlier and contemporary aspirants to advanced degrees. In studying this area of educational and social history, the focus has been limited, at least for the time being, to elite private institutions, to the so-called Big Three of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Although admission and assimilation at these colleges would be more difficult than at most public institutions, once attained, success would be noteworthy and could help to open doors elsewhere.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , Fall 1979 , pp. 285 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

∗ For further documentation and elucidation of this topic, consult my overall study, The Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900–1970 (Westport, Connecticut, 1979).

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