Antisemitism continued at Stanford into the late 1960s

A Stanford College process drive, evoking headlines, lately reported what had lengthy been recognized by some school, however most likely in in regards to the previous 20 years that data had disappeared in a lot of the Stanford group: that Stanford within the Fifties had discriminated in opposition to Jewish college students in undergraduate admissions.

The duty drive apparently didn’t uncover that Stanford’s antisemitic admissions insurance policies, below the admissions dean, Rixford Snyder, continued into in regards to the late Nineteen Sixties.

A particular school committee had quietly reported on this discriminatory downside in spring 1967 to the then-newly appointed College provost, Richard Lyman, who later grew to become the Stanford president.

The 1967 committee discovered, amongst different issues, that academically sturdy college students within the ‘60s who have been Jewish have been considerably much less more likely to be admitted than non-Jews.

Moreover, Snyder and his assistants, in plenty of instances of their recruiting, even averted going to excessive faculties with giant Jewish pupil our bodies. That included avoiding New York Metropolis, whose excessive faculties produced a minimum of 5 Stanford school who have been, or grew to become, Nobel prize winners — in biomedicine, physics and economics. All have been Jewish.

In 1967, the particular school committee, in quiet session with Provost Lyman, agreed to not publicly point out Snyder’s anti-Semitic practices and insurance policies.

Nor was there any public suggestion by the committee that Stanford President J.E. Wallace Sterling undoubtedly authorized of Snyder’s anti-Semitic practices and insurance policies.

The idea by most, if not all, of the committee members was that Snyder had been following the insurance policies that President Sterling himself desired.

In 1967, the behind-the-scenes association, involving Provost Lyman and the committee, averted all public prices about anti-Semitism and thus any public controversy about Stanford’s discriminatory admissions.

The off-the-record bureaucratic resolution of avoiding public battle appeared wiser, and simpler, and with out open controversy. That was the way in which, Lyman and the committee  concluded, to take away Snyder.

The undramatic pushing out of Snyder, who lingered as admissions dean into about 1969, left bruised emotions however averted any candid dialogue or any substantial public dispute. It was, merely put, a major change of deans with out troubling public friction.

On reflection, from the attitude of greater than a half century, many critics might justifiably lament that there was, by design, no public airing in 1967-69 of the fundamental issues involving Snyder. Therefore, there was no open acknowledgment of Stanford’s anti-Semitic insurance policies and due to this fact no public accountability and no apologies.

In all this, there’s a ultimate irony: Snyder, leaving admissions, rapidly grew to become an admired director of the Stanford Alumni Affiliation. For some years, as a preferred Stanfordite, Snyder, profitable plaudits, shepherded Stanford alumni on cruises and journey overseas.

Starting in in regards to the late Nineteen Seventies, the information of earlier anti-Semitism in Stanford admissions coverage have been a topic in occasional class lectures or seminar classes in historical past and American research programs at Stanford and in casual out-of-class discussions with some school and college students on the college.

However judging from its latest report, the 2022 process drive appears solely to have uncovered a part of the somewhat sophisticated, and ugly, story stretching over about 20 years, below admissions director Snyder and President Sterling.

Extra awaits additional investigation and evaluation, and probably additionally a centered dialogue of the college’s accountability for its previous, together with maybe wanting into anti-semitism for a time in school recruitment in some tutorial fields.

Barton J. Bernstein, now a Stanford emeritus historical past professor, was a member of the 1967 school committee and later taught about this topic for a few years.