1
“A Matter Requiring the Utmost Discretion”
A REPORT FROM THE ADVISORY TASK FORCE ON THE HISTORY OF
JEWISH ADMISSIONS AND EXPERIENCE AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY
September, 2022
Task Force Members:
Professor Ari Y Kelman (faculty), Chair
Professor Anthony Antonio (faculty)
Erika Bullock (graduate research assistant)
Emily Greenwald (graduate student)
Rabbi Laurie Hahn Tapper (staff)
Jem Jebbia (graduate research assistant)
Professor Emily Levine (faculty)
Odelia Lorch (undergraduate student)
Professor Kathryn Gin Lum (faculty)
Professor Matthew Snipp (staff)
Isaac Stein (alumnus)
Professor Mitchell Stevens (faculty)
Jeffrey Stone (trustee)
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Table of Contents
Charge from the President to the Advisory Task Force on the History of Jewish Admissions and
Experience at Stanford University .................................................................................................. 4
Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... 5
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 7
What We Can Learn from Admissions .............................................................................. 11
The Emergence of Selective Admissions at Stanford ....................................................... 13
Snyder’s Intention to Suppress the Number of Jewish Students at Stanford .................. 17
Targeting High Schools ...................................................................................................... 20
Who Else Knew About Snyder’s Intentions? ..................................................................... 25
Admissions in Policy and Practice ..................................................................................... 26
Denial in Practice .............................................................................................................. 31
Impressions of Quotas ...................................................................................................... 39
Stanford’s Jewish Population ............................................................................................ 45
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 49
Recommendations ............................................................................................................ 52
Appendix A: The Glover Memo .................................................................................................... 63
Appendix B: Methodology for Historical Research ...................................................................... 64
Appendix C: Methodology for Quantitative Analysis .................................................................. 65
Appendix D: Enrollment Data from Selected Public High Schools as Presented in Registrar’s
Reports 1952-1960........................................................................................................................ 67
Appendix E: All Possible Combinations of Annual Enrollments at Stanford from Fairfax High
School, 1950-1958 ........................................................................................................................ 68
Appendix F: All Possible Combinations of Annual Enrollments at Stanford from Beverly Hills
High School, 1950-1958 ................................................................................................................ 69
Appendix G: Jewish Population Data ........................................................................................... 74
Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................... 75
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Charge from the President to the Advisory Task Force on the History of
Jewish Admissions and Experience at Stanford University
January, 2022
The Advisory Task Force on the History of Jewish Admissions and Experience at Stanford
University is charged with: (1) researching the history of admission policies and practices for
Jewish students at Stanford in the 1950s, including the allegations in a recent blog posting
“How I Discovered Stanford’s Jewish Quota” by Charles Petersen and (2) making
recommendations about how to enhance Jewish life on campus, including how best to address
any findings resulting from the research on admissions practices.
The task force will conduct this work under the sponsorship of the Office for Religious and
Spiritual Life and the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community. The findings
and recommendations of the task force will be presented to the President and Provost. The
President and Provost may ask for additional information or that the task force conduct such
other work as they deem appropriate.
All task force members will serve with an objective to represent the best interests of the entire
university and need to be open to multiple perspectives. Task force members are not intended
to represent any particular constituencies, but rather to consider issues impartially. It is
possible that committee members have heard, or even participated in, discussions on the issues
at hand. However, the role of the task force is to ascertain the relevant facts through the fact-
finding process and consider applicable principles with an open mind. Advocacy groups and
stakeholder perspectives may provide input on the issue through other methods, as
determined by the chair of the task force.
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Executive Summary
In January 2022, an Advisory Task Force on the History of Jewish Admissions and Experience at
Stanford University was established to fulfill two interlocking charges. The first was to examine
Stanford’s admissions policies and practices during the middle of the 20th century to address
allegations about biases against Jewish students. The second was to make recommendations to
the university about “how to enhance Jewish life on campus, including how best to address any
findings resulting from the research on admissions practices.”
Charge #1
An extensive investigation uncovered two key findings. First, we discovered evidence of
actions taken to suppress the number of Jewish students admitted to Stanford during the early
1950s. Second, we found that members of the Stanford administration regularly misled parents
and friends of applicants, alumni, outside investigators, and trustees who raised concerns about
those actions throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Early in 1953, Stanford’s Director of Admissions, Rixford Snyder, raised concerns about
the number of Jewish students at Stanford to Frederic Glover, the assistant to Stanford
President Wallace Sterling. Glover conveyed his account of the conversation and of Snyder’s
desire “to disregard our stated policy of paying no attention to the race or religion of
applicants” in a memo to Sterling. Glover supported Snyder’s intentions. In the memo, Glover
specified that Snyder was concerned about two Southern California high schools that he knew
to have significant numbers of Jewish students: Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High
School.
We do not know whether Snyder also took action against any other schools or students
who identified themselves as Jewish on their applications, regardless of their high school. But
we found a sharp drop in enrollments from these two schools in the class that started Stanford
in the fall of 1953. No other schools experienced such a sharp reduction in students enrolling at
Stanford at that time.
Snyder did not act alone. Although we do not know whether Sterling read the memo
from Glover, at least three other people in the top levels of Stanford’s leadership read it,
including the Provost, Douglas Whitaker. If Sterling read the memo, which we cannot confirm,
then he, too, may be implicated in knowing about Snyder’s intentions and not acting to stop
them.
We do not know how long Snyder acted against these two schools or if he acted against
other schools or individual students. But the effect was felt particularly keenly among Jews in
Southern California among whom developed a widespread understanding that Stanford had a
“quota” on Jewish students. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, when alumni, the Anti-
Defamation League, and at least one trustee raised concerns to Glover, Sterling, or Snyder, they
were met with dismissals and denials. Glover’s and Snyder’s written responses took advantage
of the literal definition of “quota” and the discretion built into Stanford’s admissions policies to
misrepresent what they knew to be otherwise true: that they collaborated to suppress the
number of Jewish students enrolling at Stanford.
Although some of Stanford’s peer institutions employed anti-Jewish prejudices in their
approach to admissions, Stanford has always affirmatively prided itself on never having done
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so. The historical research presented here calls that claim into question. While there may
never have been a formal quota (and Stanford used that technical defense often), we have
found clear evidence of anti-Jewish bias in admissions at the highest levels of the university in
the early 1950s.
Charge #2
The historical facts laid out in the fulfillment of the first charge to the task force serve as
the foundation to the recommendations about how to enhance Jewish life on campus in the
present and future. This task force evidences one example of how Stanford is beginning to face
its past and build toward a more equitable, inclusive, and just future.
The challenges that Jewish students face in a world shaped by rising antisemitism and
that they experience on campus rather than during the admissions process differ considerably
from many of those identified in response to the first charge. In order to better frame the
recommendations that follow, the task force organized two focus groups (one with
undergraduates and one with graduate students) and 10 semi-structured interviews as part of a
pilot project intended to better understand the experience of Jewish students at Stanford.
The insights shared by Jewish students generated two tiers of recommendations. The
first tier responds to the discoveries of the task force regarding Stanford’s history of efforts to
suppress the number of Jewish students at Stanford and its record of denying and dismissing
concerns about those efforts. The second tier draws on the pilot inquiry in order to direct
resources that might enhance the experiences of Jewish students at Stanford in the 21
st
century. We recommend that the university:
Acknowledge and Apologize
• Stanford publicly acknowledge its historical participation in admissions practices
designed to discriminate against Jewish students.
• Stanford publicly apologize for taking actions to suppress the number of Jewish students
and for misleading those who raised concerns about those issues.
Explore, Educate, and Enforce
• Undertake a comprehensive study of contemporary Jewish life at Stanford.
• Develop and include modules addressing Jews and Jewish identity in appropriate
educational trainings, seminars, and programs intended to make ours a more equitable,
inclusive, and just community.
• The ASSU should enforce the Undergraduate Senate’s “Resolution to Recognize Anti-
Semitism in Our Community” (UGS-W2019-23).
• Schedule the opening of the school year so that it does not coincide with the Jewish
High Holidays and specifically Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana.
• Provide for student religious and cultural needs in housing and dining.
• Clarify the relationship between the university and Stanford Hillel.
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Introduction
“Rix is concerned that more than one quarter of the applications from men are from Jewish
boys. Last year we had 150 Jewish applicants, of whom we accepted 50. This condition appears
to apply one [sic] to men; there does not seem to be any increase in applications from Jewish
girls. … Rix … says that the situation forces him to disregard our stated policy of paying no
attention to the race or religion of applicants. I told him that I thought his current policy made
sense, that it was a matter requiring the utmost discretion. …”
- Fred Glover, February 4, 1953
“[I]t is inevitable that candidates of all faiths will be turned down. We are never accused of
being anti-Catholic or anti-Methodist, but the charge does seem to arise sometimes, when a
Jewish candidate is involved, that the University is anti-Jewish.”
- Fred Glover, December 28, 1954
This inquiry into the history of Stanford’s admissions policies takes shape during an historical
moment in which institutions of all kinds are critically reexamining their own histories. A
growing awareness of the severity of historical and systematic injustices have toppled
monuments, reinvented museums, and led to movements to rename everything from public
schools to city streets. As institutions committed to free inquiry and rigorous, fact-based
investigation, universities bear a particularly heavy responsibility for leading the way in these
efforts. Committees and commissions at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Georgetown, and Johns
Hopkins have advanced efforts to acknowledge the role these institutions and their leadership
have played in the advancement of slavery, racism, eugenics, and other forces that exacerbated
systematic inequalities between people.
1
Stanford has engaged in its own efforts of self-
1
Anderson, Greta. 2020. “Campuses Reckon With Racist Past.” Inside Higher Ed. July 6, 2020.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/07/06/campuses-remove-monuments-and-building-names-legacies-
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reflection, as well, which have resulted in the removal or alteration of names attached to
campus features.
2
As part of this effort, Stanford has created new positions in the Provost’s
office “intended to lead equity and inclusion efforts at Stanford.” It has also dedicated
significant resources toward IDEAL, a multifaceted initiative to address questions of inequality
and diversity in every area of the campus.
3
These efforts, both historical and programmatic, are
among the many required to lay the groundwork for impactful and lasting change on our
campuses and in our communities.
The immediate impetus for this investigation was the publication of an online
newsletter by Dr. Charles Petersen entitled “How I Discovered Stanford’s Jewish Quota.”
4
The
newsletter highlighted a memo (hereafter known as the Glover Memo) that Dr. Petersen
discovered in the papers of Stanford President J. E. Wallace Sterling that shared concerns of the
then-Director of Admissions, Rixford K. Snyder, about the possibility of a “high percentage” of
racism; “Georgetown Reflects on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation.” n.d. Georgetown University. Accessed
April 7, 2022. https://www.georgetown.edu/slavery/; “Princeton Renames Wilson School and Residential College,
Citing Former President’s Racism.” 2020. Princeton Alumni Weekly. June 27, 2020.
https://paw.princeton.edu/article/princeton-renames-wilson-school-and-residential-college-citing-former-
presidents-racism; Viglione, Giuliana, and Nidhi Subbaraman. 2020. “Universities Scrub Names of Racist Leaders —
Students Say It’s a First Step.” Nature 584 (7821): 331–32. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02393-3; “Yale and
Slavery Working Group.” 2020. Office of the President. November 16, 2020.
https://president.yale.edu/committees-programs/presidents-committees/yale-and-slavery-working-group;
“Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery.” n.d. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Accessed May
3, 2022. https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu/homepage.
2
“Campus Names.” n.d. Accessed April 7, 2022. https://campusnames.stanford.edu/; Stanford University. 2018.
“Stanford Will Seek to Rename Serra Mall in Honor of Jane Stanford.” Stanford News (blog). September 13, 2018.
https://news.stanford.edu/2018/09/13/naming-report/; Stanford University. 2020. “Stanford Will Rename Campus
Spaces Named for David Starr Jordan and Relocate Statue Depicting Louis Agassiz.” Stanford News (blog). October
7, 2020. https://news.stanford.edu/2020/10/07/jordan-agassiz/.
3
Beginning in 2018, IDEAL has introduced a dashboard for representing the composition of the Stanford
community, new provostial fellows, new faculty hires, and “learning journeys,” all of which are intended to support
and encourage the creation of a campus that is a “respectful, fair and safe environment in which all members can
thrive.” See: https://ideal.stanford.edu/
4
Petersen, Charles. 2021. “How I Discovered Stanford’s Jewish Quota.” Substack newsletter. Making History (blog).
August 8, 2021. https://charlespetersen.substack.com/p/stanfords-secret-jewish-quota. The task force would like
to thank Dr. Petersen for raising the issue that led to the work of the task force. We are also grateful for his
generosity in sharing resources.
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Jewish students enrolling at Stanford.
5
The memo, written by Sterling’s assistant Fred Glover,
reported that Snyder intended to limit the number of Jewish students, an idea that Glover
believed “made sense.” We do not know whether or not Sterling read the memo (a full
transcription of the memo can be found in Appendix A).
The report that follows focuses on four concerns. First, it examines the memo within
the context of Stanford’s admissions policies and practices of the time and it identifies the
mechanisms used to try and limit the number of Jewish students at Stanford. The second
concern explores efforts that Snyder and Glover took to mislead independent investigators,
alumni, and at least one trustee about their efforts. Third, it highlights the impact of Snyder’s
actions beyond the campus. Finally, it offers recommendations about how to improve the
experience of Jewish students at Stanford.
This report, therefore, draws on the past to engage a present in which antisemitism is
an increasingly pressing concern. Antisemitic events in the United States including the 2017
“Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the 2018 massacre of Jews at the Tree of Life
synagogue, and the taking of hostages at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, in 2021 have shown
this to be true. The Anti-Defamation League’s 2021 Audit found antisemitic incidents in the
United States to be at an all-time high.
6
While it is possible to disagree about what constitutes
an antisemitic act, it is clear that American antisemitism remains a persistent, pernicious, and
highly malleable feature of American politics and culture and that it has found expression
5
Memo from Fred Glover to Wallace Sterling February 4, 1953. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford
University, Papers (SC0216, Box 7, Folder 14). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
6
https://www.adl.org/audit2021w
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everywhere along the political spectrum from the far right to the far left.
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Stanford is not
insulated from these broader currents and members of the campus community feel the
pressures and pains born of a context in which people feel increasingly emboldened to espouse
antisemitic views and to act on them.
8
In response to these conditions, an investigation into past practices seems both abstract
and urgent. As some alumni interviewed for this project have asked, “Why investigate the
distant past when the pressures of the present seem so urgent?” This is a fair question, and it is
one that members of the task force have asked of ourselves. But as other such efforts at
Stanford and elsewhere have taught, it is difficult to engage with the present until we reckon
with the past. Reevaluating the past to reckon with and acknowledge it is a crucial step in
making substantive, meaningful, and long-lasting change.
This notion is central to Judaism’s understanding of repentance or הבושת (teshuva). The
term’s linguistic root is the same as the word “to return” or “to go back.” Etymologically, it
implies a process of returning to the past in order to acknowledge it, apologize, and make
amends. The evidence for what medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides calls “complete
repentance” is that a person behaves differently in light of their acknowledgement of past
7
Baddiel, David. 2021. Jews Don’t Count. TLS Books; Lipstadt, Deborah E. 2019. Antisemitism: Here and Now. New
York: Schocken; Rosenberg, Yair. 2022. “Why So Many People Still Don’t Understand Anti-Semitism.” The Atlantic.
January 19, 2022. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/texas-synagogue-anti-semitism-
conspiracy-theory/621286/; Ward, Eric. 2017. “Skin in the Game.” Political Research Associates. Accessed April 7,
2022. https://politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism;
Weiss, Bari. 2019. How to Fight Anti-Semitism. New York: Crown.
8
Throughout this report, we will follow the convention of writing “antisemitism” rather than “anti-Semitism.” The
rationale behind this spelling is best explicated by Deborah Lipstadt who has written: “In my own English-language
usage I choose not to go with the hyphen because the word, both as its creator had intended and as it has been
generally used for the past one hundred and fifty years, means, quite simply, the hatred of Jews. It does not mean
hostility toward a nonexistent thing called ‘Semitism.’” Lipstadt, Deborah E. 2019. Antisemitism: Here and Now.
New York: Schocken. 14.
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deeds. It is in the spirit of הבושת that we offer this report to the university community, in the
hope that this return to the past is the beginning of a turn toward a better, more respectful,
and more equitable future for all of its members.
What We Can Learn from Admissions
Admissions can be understood as a membrane between the university and the public.
Admissions policies and practices shape the character and culture of every university or college
by selecting some people to join the institution while refusing others; these policies and
practices construct a student body out of an assortment of applicants and build a university
class by class.
9
Consequently, admissions offer a unique window into the composition of the
campus community and the formation of its culture. The policies and practices that define
admissions have profound and consequential effects far beyond the evaluation of any single
student.
Admissions offices, however, do not operate alone and their decisions are not made in
isolation. As an internal Stanford report from 1966 observed, “[A]dmissions policies and
procedures do not stand in isolation from the rest of the University. Rather — for good and bad
— they both influence and are influenced by the various characteristics of the Stanford
9
Soares, Joseph A. 2007. The Power of Privilege: Yale and America’s Elite Colleges. Stanford: Stanford University
Press; Steinberg, Jacques. 2002. The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College. 6/29/02
edition. Penguin Books; Stevens, Mitchell L. 2009. Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites.
Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press.
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curriculum, formal and informal.”
10
Archival documents indicate that during the middle
decades of the 20th century, Stanford’s admissions decisions were managed by a small group of
admissions officers in collaboration with others in the Offices of the President and Provost,
development, alumni relations, faculty and staff, alumni “ambassadors,” and counselors and
principals at hundreds of high schools across the United States.
This extended admissions apparatus illustrates the complexity of the process and the
variety of factors accounted for within it. Early in the 20
th
century, as qualified candidates
began to outnumber available spots in incoming classes, elite American colleges and
universities pivoted from “qualitative admissions,” which admitted all qualified applicants,
toward an approach known as “selective admissions,” which chose among all qualified
applicants.
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This new approach birthed questions about how to justify the selection of one
applicant over another or how to develop a policy that systematized acceptance decisions. As
historians Jerome Karabel, Marsha Synnott, and Harold Wechsler have shown, selective
admissions emerged at a moment in the history of American higher education when elite
colleges and universities faced increased demand from qualified students who did not “fit”
their image of either their desired students or their institutions.
12
10
Letter. Rixford K. Snyder to Thomas C. Dyer. January 23, 1967. Stanford University, President’s Office. Sterling-
Pitzer Transition Papers (SC0217, Box 3, Folder 2). Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
11
In his oral history, Snyder recalled that he helped Stanford move from “qualitative admissions,” which admitted
all qualified students, to “selective admissions,” which selects “among all those who do meet the established
requirements. See Snyder, Rixford K. Oral History. Stanford Oral History Project Interviews (SC1017,
https://purl.stanford.edu/cf859pn5973), pages 36-37. Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
12
Karabel, Jerome. 2005. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and
Princeton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co; Synnott, Marcia Graham. 1979. The Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and
Admissions at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, 1900-1970. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press; Wechsler, Harold S.
1977. The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in America. New York: Wiley.
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The innovation of selective admissions solved the problem of having too many qualified
applicants by creating new, elaborate systems and metrics for evaluating them. This solution,
however, introduced new challenges: How does a school create systems that can assess “well
roundedness”? How does an application process provide indications of who will succeed and
who will not? What other aspects of a campus culture does this particular school value and
wish to account for in admissions? How does an admissions officer decide between two
apparently equally qualified students? The result has been that college admissions processes,
no matter how well-defined or well-explained, include plenty of room for discretion and
judgment. Selective admissions, therefore, is highly dynamic and subject to erroneous
judgments on the part of both institutions and applicants. “The decisions that determine the
sorting among colleges are guided by a certain substratum of factual knowledge about higher
education, supplemented by a vast, amorphous, and confused body of beliefs, rumors, folklore,
and gossip. This situation is true both of students in choosing colleges and of colleges in
choosing students.”
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The Emergence of Selective Admissions at Stanford
Stanford’s approach to admissions has always afforded a great deal of discretion to those
making admissions decisions. From the 1920s until 1947, admissions were handled by the
Office of the Registrar in consultation with a faculty Committee on Admissions and Advanced
13
Thresher, B. Alden. 1966. College Admissions and the Public Interest. New York: College Entrance Examination
Board. 68.
14
Standing.
14
Applications were brief – barely two pages long – and recommendations were
highly formalized.
15
Applications included typical questions about schooling and residence,
alongside ratings of the applicant’s general health, eyesight, hearing, and whether they had
“speech handicaps” or “physical handicaps.”
16
Applicants were asked to report their father’s
occupation and their mother’s maiden name. It also included two questions about religion.
1. Of what church or religious society are you a member?
2. If not a member, church preference?
Applicants frequently left one or both of these answers blank. Others answered “Protestant” or
“Latter-Day Saints” or the name of a specific parish or church. One applicant left the first
question blank but indicated in the second that she was a member of Temple Shearith Israel in
San Francisco. Another said simply “Judaism.” The religion questions remained on Stanford’s
applications until 1950.
17
14
Fetter, Jean H. 1997. Questions and Admissions: Reflections on 100,000 Admissions Decisions at Stanford.
Stanford University Press. 1-5. See also Mitchell, J. Pearce. 1958. Stanford University 1916-1941. Stanford, CA: The
Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. 48-52.
15
Beginning in 1929, Stanford adopted a “personal rating blank” for recommenders to complete. This appears to
have remained in use until the late 1940s when it was phased out in favor of a different approach to
recommendations. For an example of the form, see Patterson, Ruth. 1931. “Evaluation of a Personal Rating Blank
as Used at Stanford for Graduate Students.” Thesis (M.A.), Stanford, CA: Stanford University, School of Education,
page 5.
16
Stanford has retained files on every student who enrolled in the university. These files include grades,
correspondence about financial aid and academic standing, and applications. All of the information about
Stanford’s application forms during the period in question has been drawn from these microfilmed files. Stanford
University Registrar’s Office, Records (SC1288, Series 9, Boxes 4-12).
17
It is unclear what prompted the removal of the questions in 1950, but it was part of an overall revision of the
application, likely initiated by Al Grommon, director of admissions 1948–1950. A brief story appeared in 1947
announcing that “Stanford University does not consider race or religion in determining a candidate’s eligibility for
admission.” The article also noted that the religion questions would be deleted from new application forms. The
Stanford Daily. July 28, 1947, 1. Around this same time, the ADL launched an effort to remove religion questions
from college applications. It is unclear whether or not the ADL’s efforts influenced Stanford’s decision to change
its applications. For a note about the University of Alabama changing its application questions, see The ADL
Bulletin. 1952. “Bulletin Briefs,” January 1952. See also a note that Crack the Quota resulted in more than “700
colleges in 21 states” that had “had eliminated from their admission blanks those questions asking race, religion,
mother’s birthplace, etc., which have no legitimate bearing on an applicant’s qualifications for getting into college,
but are potentially harmful in the hands of a biased, or quota-minded, admissions officer.” The ADL Bulletin. 1956.
“Bulletin Briefs,” January 1956.
15
Stanford Registrar J. Pearce Mitchell (who served 1925-1945) explained that once an
application had been received, “The members of the Committee on Admissions and Advanced
Standing then reviewed all the data and based their decisions on the total desirability of the
applicant rather than on any one factor.”
18
The need to assess “total desirability” led to the
codification of a ten-point scale that awarded “three [points] for the school record on a strictly
mathematical scale; three [points] for the score on the aptitude test … and four points for the
Committee’s judgment regarding the student’s personal qualities, general promise, and so on.
Two members of the Committee read and scored all the applications, and averaged the
results.”
19
Although the process by which they decided to admit a given student or how they
applied the ten-point scale is unknown, Mitchell believed that “the results were reasonably
satisfactory.”
20
The years immediately after World War II required a change in approach. Students
returning from military service and others supported by the GI Bill resulted in an
“unprecedented number of qualified applicants for admission [that] was too impressive to be
ignored.”
21
Competition for spots had been “so keen” that the university was forced to “deny
admission to hundreds of students with fine records who, in normal times, would have been
accepted.”
22
In response, Stanford appointed Al Grommon, a professor of English, as its first
18
Mitchell, J. Pearce. 1958. Stanford University 1916-1941. Stanford, CA: The Board of Trustees of the Leland
Stanford Junior University. 52. Also quoted in Fetter, 4-5.
19
Mitchell, J. Pearce. 1958. Stanford University 1916-1941. Stanford, CA: The Board of Trustees of the Leland
Stanford Junior University. 52.
20
Mitchell, J. Pearce. 1958. Stanford University 1916-1941. Stanford, CA: The Board of Trustees of the Leland
Stanford Junior University. 52
21
President Donald Tresidder. Annual report of the president of Stanford University for the academic year ending
1946. 4. Stable url: purl.stanford.edu/dz233yh9603
22
Annual report of the president of Stanford University for the academic year ending 1946. 5. Stable url:
purl.stanford.edu/dz233yh9603
16
Director of Admissions in 1947. Grommon accomplished a great deal during his two years,
despite working without his own budget or staff.
23
In 1950, President J. E. Wallace Sterling replaced Grommon with a young professor of
history and Stanford graduate, Rixford Snyder.
24
Snyder got the nod after serving on the
Committee on Admissions and Advanced Standing, where he was the only member who
regularly read application files.
25
As the Director of Admissions, Snyder understood that his role
was to advance the mission of the university through the admissions process. He recalled that
Sterling
gave me two guidelines for my work in admission — build up a student body that would be
brighter than the then current faculty so he could attract outstanding professors from the East,
and to remember that the students I admitted in the fifties would be supporting the university
thirty years later — in short to consider both their qualifications and their potential loyalty to
the university.
26
Snyder understood that his job was to recruit students who would help ensure the future of the
university, and he took the responsibility seriously. He did not offer a discrete vision for who
these students ought to be, though he had a sense that they should not merely be “minds” or
23
Letter and Report. August 7, 1950. Al Grommon to Dr. J. E. Wallace Sterling. Office of Undergraduate
Admissions, Records (SC0407, Accession 1750, Box 1, Folder 7). Department of Special Collections and University
Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
24
Stanford Daily. April 14, 1950. Snyder joined the faculty after serving in the Navy during World War II. Before
his service in the Navy during World War II, Snyder taught in Stanford’s History Department as part of a team that
taught the Western Civilization course, a three-course sequence required of all undergraduates. In that role,
Snyder worked with Henry Madden, a lecturer who it has recently been discovered used his Stanford position and
budget to espouse views that were sympathetic to Nazism. See “Preliminary Report of the Task Force to Review
the Naming of the University Library.” April 18, 2022. Fresno, California: Fresno State University.
https://president.fresnostate.edu/taskforce-library/documents/HMMLibraryPreliminaryReport.pdf
25
Snyder, Rixford K. Oral History. Stanford Oral History Project Interviews (SC1017,
https://purl.stanford.edu/cf859pn5973), 28. Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
26
Snyder, Rixford K. “Memories of a Santa Clara valley boy who never left, 1908-1991” typescript, 1991.
(SCM0237, Box 1), 86. Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif.
17
“grinds.”
27
Instead, he emphasized the significance of “motivation, attitudes, character, and
future potential as citizens” in the creation of “strong alumni for the future.” Elsewhere,
Snyder explained, “Because Stanford is a residence university, and because it is important that
students fit into our community environment, the Committee bases as much as one-third of its
estimate of a candidate on this factor.”
28
Snyder served as the university’s Director of Admissions for 20 years that coincided with
critical decades in Stanford’s growth and emergence as an elite institution.
29
The story of
Stanford admissions during the 1950s and 1960s is one of creating a student body to match the
university’s growing reputation and rising stature. Snyder was central to this effort.
Snyder’s Intention to Suppress the Number of Jewish Students at
Stanford
Snyder also played a central role in efforts to limit the number of Jewish students at
Stanford. A 1953 memo written to President Sterling from his assistant, Fred Glover, explained
that Snyder has expressed concerns over the number of Jewish applicants (see Appendix A for a
27
Memo Rixford K. Snyder to Wallace Sterling. February 10, 1958. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford
University, Papers (SC0216, Box A1, Folder 14). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. See also Press Release. October 10, 1963. Stanford University, News Service,
Records circa 1891-2013 (SC 0122, Series 1, Box 186, Folder “Admissions: News releases 1960-1969”). The Press
Release quotes Snyder saying, “They have an all-round scholastic quality which marks them as ‘bright without
being grinds.’”
28
Snyder, Rixford K. “Admissions Standards: Tough but Flexible.” Stanford Review (January 1958), 13-15. Stanford
University News Service (SC0122, Box 3, Folder 1). Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
29
Rebecca Lowen’s history of Stanford during this period focuses almost exclusively on the efforts of the
administration and faculty. Lowen, Rebecca S. 1997. Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of
Stanford. Berkeley: University of California Press. See also Gillmor, C. Stewart. 2004. Fred Terman at Stanford:
Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.
18
full transcription of the memo).
30
Calling the number of Jewish students a “problem,” Glover
wrote: “Rix has been following a policy of picking the outstanding Jewish boys while
endeavoring to keep a normal balance of Jewish men and women in the class.” He continued,
“Rix feels that this problem is loaded with dynamite, and he wanted you [Sterling] to know
about it, as he says that the situation forces him to disregard our stated policy of paying no
attention to the race or religion of applicants.” Glover wrote that he approved of Snyder’s
decision. “I told him that I thought his current policy made sense” and said that he promised to
check with Sterling and let Snyder know if Sterling “had different views.”
Glover wrote the memo at precisely the moment when Snyder was starting to organize
and systematize the admissions process. In the oral history he conducted with the Stanford
Historical Society, Snyder recalled that “it wasn’t until really 1953 our admissions changed” to
become more selective, and that 1952 was the first year when he had to “turn down qualified
male applicants.” Calling the rise in applications a “problem” and a “major revolution in the
Stanford application picture,” Snyder noted that between 1951 and 1958, applications from
male candidates rose 151 percent and applications from female applications rose 101
percent.
31
Among other concerns, Snyder was trying to manage an admissions process that
was changing rapidly in three ways. First, competition between male students had grown
30
Memo from Fred Glover to Wallace Sterling February 4, 1953. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford
University, Papers (SC0216, Box 7, Folder 14). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
31
Snyder, Rixford K. “Admissions Standards: Tough but Flexible.” Stanford Review (January 1958), 13-15. Stanford
University News Service (SC0122, Box 3, Folder 1). Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. See also Report. Rixford K. Snyder “SUMMARY OF REPORT ON
ADMISSIONS MADE ON JUNE 19, 1957 TO THE COMMITTEE ON ACADEMIC AFFAIRS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
BY RIXFORD K. SNYDER DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS.” J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford University, Papers
(SC0216, Box B1, Folder 1). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University
Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
19
increasingly competitive and Snyder needed to develop a rationale for determining which
students to admit and which to reject.
32
Second, he and his two assistants were reading more
and more applications each year and they were looking for a way to manage the process.
In the Glover Memo, Glover relayed that Snyder had identified “a number of high
schools in Los Angeles — Beverly Hills and Fairfax are examples — whose studentbody [sic] runs
from 95 to 98% Jewish. If we accept a few Jewish applicants from these schools, the following
year we get a flood of Jewish applications.” Contemporary reports from the Registrar support
Snyder’s hunch: Between 1949 and 1952, Fairfax sent 20 male students and Beverly Hills High
School sent 67 – the fourth largest number among public high schools in California and the
largest outside of the Bay Area.
33
During these years, however, Stanford rejected very few
male applicants, so these numbers reflect a largely non-selective admissions process.
Nevertheless, he expressed concern over the number of applicants from these two schools
because of the “flood” created “if we accept a few Jewish applicants.”
Fairfax High School and Beverly Hills High School, while not the only schools to serve
substantially Jewish neighborhoods, were exceptional in this regard, situated in two of the most
densely Jewish neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.
34
As one demographic study of Los
Angeles Jews concluded, “We find that the densest areas of Jewish population are on the
32
Owing to Jane Stanford’s quota on female students, competition among female applicants was much tougher
than it was among male applicants. Even after the Trustees voted to lift the quota in 1933 to allow more female
students and, in the process, to fend off economic pressures, a de facto quota remained in place as the university
required female students to live on campus but did not expand housing for them. The quota on female students
was only formally lifted in 1973.
33
Registrar’s Report for 1952 (SC1760 box 3).
34
Massarik, Fred. 1953. “A Report on the Jewish Population of Los Angeles.” Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Jewish
Community Council; Massarik, Fred. 1959. “A Report on the Jewish Population of Los Angeles.” Los Angeles, CA:
Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles.
20
Westside, with the Wilshire-Fairfax and the Beverly Fairfax area being more than 60 percent
Jewish. … A surprisingly high proportion of Jewish population is found in the Beverly Hills
area.”
35
These neighborhoods were so densely Jewish that it raised concerns for leaders in the
Los Angeles Jewish community who noted that non-Jewish students were requesting transfers
out of Fairfax High School, where they were uncomfortable in their minority status.
36
Snyder
appears to have used the demographics of these two schools as a proxy for Jewish students.
Targeting High Schools
Snyder needed a proxy because Stanford’s application forms did not ask about religion
or ethnicity, although it retained questions about father’s occupation and mother’s maiden
name, along with a requirement that applicants supply a photograph of themselves. On their
own, however, these pieces of information would not have allowed Snyder and his office to
identify Jewish applicants with certainty. This was even the case at Harvard, earlier in the
century. When Harvard set about trying to limit the number of Jewish students in 1922, it
convened a committee to develop a system for detecting Jewish applicants. An applicant
labelled “J1” meant that “the evidence pointed conclusively to the fact that the student was
35
Massarik, Fred. 1953. “A Report on the Jewish Population of Los Angeles.” Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Jewish
Community Council. 13. For a note about Fairfax, see Moore, Deborah Dash. 1994. To the Golden Cities: Pursuing
the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 86. See also Morris,
Bonnie J. 1997. The High School Scene in the Fifties: Voices from West L.A. Westport, Conn: Bergin & Garvey;
Vorspan, Max, and Lloyd P. Gartner. 1970. History of the Jews of Los Angeles. Regional History Series of the
American Jewish History Center of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. San Marino, Calif: Huntington
Library.
36
“West Side Tensions,” n.d. (1955-1956). Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, Community Relations
Committee Collection IV, Box 9, Folder “CRC-1956, “Westside Tensions Committee.” Urban Archives Center, Oviatt
Library, California State University, Northridge. See also Baumgarten, Max David. 2017. “Searching for a Stake: The
Scope of Jewish Politics in Los Angeles from Watts to Rodney King, 1965-1992.” Ph.D., Los Angeles, CA: UCLA.
https://escholarship.org/content/qt8gk6m3ks/qt8gk6m3ks.pdf. 45. With gratitude to Max D. Baumgarten for
providing these valuable documents.
21
Jewish,” whereas one identified as “J3” “suggested the possibility that the student was
Jewish.”
37
Snyder did not have the resources for such an elaborate undertaking.
Instead, Snyder followed a simpler and more discreet path laid out by his colleagues at
Yale. Although Glover noted that “Harvard and Yale stick strictly to a quota system,” it was also
not entirely accurate.
38
Before adding a question about religion to its applications in 1934, Yale
reduced but did not eliminate Jewish enrollments from neighboring areas known to have
sizeable Jewish populations: New Haven, Hartford, and Bridgeport, as well as public school
students from New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the three cities with the largest American
Jewish populations.
39
Of course, some non-Jewish students would have been caught up in this
effort, but Yale’s admissions team chalked it up to the cost of a more discreet effort intended to
“protect our Nordic stock,” according to Yale President James Rowland Angell.
40
Yale’s strategy
worked to suppress the number of Jewish students on campus and to effectively hide its efforts
from scrutiny.
Snyder appears to have followed this approach and its effect coincided with the
expression of his intention. First, Snyder stopped including these two schools in his recruitment
efforts.
41
Prior to 1953, itineraries of recruitment trips of Stanford’s admissions officers
37
“Statistical Report of the Statisticians” quoted in Karabel. The Chosen. 96. See also Synnott. The Half-Opened
Door, 94-95.
38
The nature of Harvard’s and Yale’s efforts to suppress the number of Jewish students was also not common
knowledge in 1953. Though Harvard’s activities in the 1920s were a matter of public record, Harvard seems to
have evaded the suspicions of the Anti-Defamation League in the early 1950s. “Great institutions–Harvard, New
York University, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, to name a few–place no racial or
religious barriers upon admission.” Forster, Arnold. 1950. A Measure of Freedom. New York, NY: Doubleday and
Company. 116.
39
Oren. Joining the Club. 53-55. See also Karabel. The Chosen, 117-119; Synnott. The Half-Opened Door, 152.
40
Angell quoted in Karabel, 119.
41
Itinerary. “Southern California Trip.” January 8-12, 1951. Cuthbertson (Kenneth M.) Papers 1941-1994 (SC0582,
Box 98, file 9) Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford,
Calif. This document mentions visits to both Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School. A collection of
22
included trips to Fairfax High School and Beverly Hills High School. After the Glover Memo, they
disappear, though other Los Angeles high schools that catered to neighborhoods with large
Jewish populations, like Hamilton High School, Hollywood and North Hollywood High Schools,
continued to appear on recruitment schedules. Despite reporting that “the three Admissions
Officers concentrated their efforts on the problems of recruitment of the Freshman Class,”
Snyder omitted recruiting directly from two schools that previously had regularly sent
significant numbers of students to Stanford.
42
Their records would easily have qualified them
as “feeder schools,” in the parlance of the Admissions Office.
Second, Snyder appears to have taken other steps that had more direct and measurable
effects, visible only in a close analysis of the annual reports of the Registrar’s Office. As
mentioned earlier, between 1949 and 1952 Stanford enrolled 67 students from Beverly Hills
High School and 20 students from Fairfax. From 1952 to 1955 Stanford enrolled 13 students
from Beverly Hills High School and 1 from Fairfax.
43
The Registrar’s records do not indicate any
other public schools that experienced such a sharp drop in student enrollments over that same
six-year period or any other six-year period during the 1950s and 1960s.
itineraries and recruiting trip reports from 1954 and 1955 can be found in J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of
Stanford University, Papers (SC0216, Box 7, Folder 17) Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. None of these mention Beverly Hills or Fairfax. School recruitment
visits were also announced through the Stanford University News Service. Fox example, see Press Release.
October 21, 1953. Stanford University, News Service, Records circa 1891-2013 (SC 0122, Series 1, Box 186, Folder
“Admissions 1949-59: News Releases) Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
42
Report “Annual Report of the Director of Admissions for the Year 1953-1954.” Rixford K. Snyder. Annual Report
of the President of Stanford University (SC 1103, Box 2, Folder “President's Report Administration 1953-54”)
Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
43
The date range corresponds to calendar years, while the Registrar’s Office presented its data according to
academic year, so what looks like four calendar years refers to three academic years: 1949-1950, 1950-1951, and
1952. This was the practice throughout the period in question.
23
Though the Registrar’s Office reported enrollments annually, it presented data on high
schools in three-year increments. As a result, each Registrar’s Report does not reflect a single
year’s total but the sum of three years of admissions. The 67 students from Beverly Hills High
School that had enrolled at Stanford (according to the Registrar’s Report of 1952) accounted for
the total number of students over three academic years: 1949-1950, 1950-1951, and 1951-
1952. Similarly, when the Registrar reported in 1955 that Stanford enrolled only a single
student from Fairfax, that, too, reflected the total number of students over three years: 1952-
1953, 1953-1954, and 1954-1955. Given this approach to reporting, it is impossible to ascertain
how many students from any given high school enrolled at Stanford in a particular academic
year.
Additional analyses, however, confirmed both the pattern and the timing of the decline,
suggesting a strong correlation between Snyder’s intention, Glover’s support of it, and the
reduction in students from those two schools who enrolled at Stanford. Though it is impossible
to determine with certainty how many graduates of any particular high school enrolled at
Stanford in any given year, we were able to calculate all of the possible combinations of
admission totals for each of these two high schools for the years in question (a more complete
description of our methods can be found in Appendix C and the data tables for the two high
schools are reproduced in Appendix E and Appendix F).
Our analysis revealed that between 16 and 29 graduates of Beverly Hills High School
enrolled at Stanford in the fall of 1952. One year later, that number dropped to between 0 and
13, which remained the range of possible enrollments for the next three years. Practically the
same story unfolds with respect to Fairfax High School. In 1951-1952, Fairfax sent either eight
24
or nine students to Stanford. The following year, Fairfax sent either a single student or no
students. This pattern persisted for the next three years, with only one or zero Fairfax
graduates enrolling in any given year.
We wish to offer three important caveats in the conclusions we can draw from the data.
First, we have no way of knowing whether or not the students who applied to Stanford from
these schools identified as Jews. We note, however, Snyder’s understanding that these schools
had significant Jewish populations, so we followed his inclination and focused our analysis on
those schools. Second, there is no way of knowing precisely how many students from any
single high school actually enrolled at Stanford during any given year. Third, these data are
based only on the number of students who ultimately enrolled at Stanford. They do not reveal
how many students applied, how many were accepted, and how many opted to attend
elsewhere. The number of admits from a given school or the “yield” of those students (what
was then referred to as the “drop off” rate) were not retained and are not available.
Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to conclude that the sharp drop in enrollments from these
schools reflected a reduction in offers of admission. Furthermore, to have had two schools that
regularly and reliably sent students to Stanford so suddenly reverse course and stop sending
students on its own accord would likely have raised concerns in the Admissions and Registrar’s
offices. We found no evidence of such concerns.
It is worth noting in this regard that enrollments from other public schools that had
significant Jewish student populations remained relatively stable. San Francisco’s Lowell High
School, which was known to attract significant numbers of San Francisco’s Jewish teenagers, did
experience a drop in the number of students it sent, but it was not nearly as sharp as Fairfax
25
and Beverly Hills High Schools. Hamilton High School, which served another Jewish
neighborhood in Los Angeles, saw a slight increase in the number of students it sent to
Stanford, and Hollywood and North Hollywood High Schools consistently sent a small number
of students that was largely unchanged between 1952 and 1955. Beyond California, schools
known to have large Jewish student populations, like New Trier High School (Winnetka, IL),
Garfield High School (Seattle, WA), or Grant and Lincoln High Schools (Portland, OR),
experienced no comparatively sharp decline in the students they sent to Stanford as a result of
Snyder’s intention to limit the number of Jewish students at Stanford (See Appendix D for
enrollment data from selected public high schools).
44
These schools, however, did not have the
density of Jewish students that the two Los Angeles area schools did.
It is unclear how long Snyder’s efforts were in effect, but the repercussions were long
lasting. Over the course of the 1950s and into the 1960s, Beverly Hills High School rebounded
somewhat, possibly sending as many as 21 and as few as 8 students in 1958. But Fairfax never
did. Our estimates suggest that it may have sent between 1 and 3 students each year through
the end of the 1950s.
45
Who Else Knew About Snyder’s Intentions?
Snyder’s intentions with respect to Jewish applicants were not a secret among
Stanford’s leadership. Glover knew about them, thought that they “made sense,” and
44
Masotti, Louis H. 1967. Education and Politics in Suburbia: The New Trier Experience. Cleveland: Press of
Western Reserve University.
45
Again, however, these numbers would not have remained consistent, and a rise one year would have to be
followed by a reduction in following years, in order to match the three-year totals provided in the Registrar’s
Reports.
26
conveyed both his and Snyder’s sentiments to President Sterling. As was common practice at
that time, people in the administration indicated that they had read a particular document by
checking off their initials on a list, usually typed or stamped directly on the document.
According to this convention, we can conclude that the Glover Memo was read by Sterling’s
two secretaries, Marguerite Cole and Lillian Caroline Owen, and by the Provost, Douglas Merritt
Whitaker. Sterling did not indicate that he read the memo, as no check mark appears by his
name. As a result, we cannot definitively conclude that Sterling read the Glover Memo.
The tone and content of the memo, however, indicated that Glover intended it for
Sterling. Glover concluded the memo by stating his intention to “relay these highlights of our
conversation to you [Sterling] and let Rix know if you had different views.” He used a familiar
salutation (“Dear Wally”), adding that this “was a matter requiring the utmost discretion.”
Admissions in Policy and Practice
Identifying others who knew about the Glover Memo contributes a crucial piece of this
larger story, as it illustrates that Snyder acted within the broad mandate of his office and with
the tacit permission of others in the administration. Stanford assigned its Director of
Admissions “the final responsibility for the admission or rejection of all candidates.”
46
Though
Snyder consulted with the Faculty Committee on Admissions, he regularly complained that they
46
Report. Rixford K. Snyder. November 21, 1958. “Annual Report of the Office of Admissions to the President for
the Academic Year 1957-1958.” J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford University, Papers (SC0216, Box 7,
Folder 18) Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
27
were not fulfilling their duties.
47
The result was an admissions policy that assigned a great deal
of discretion to the Director of Admissions.
48
Snyder had inherited the ten-point system with its allotment of four points to “personal
qualities” from Grommon and the Registrar’s office.
49
He also inherited a policy that made
explicit his latitude and authority over admissions decisions. A 1945 outline of the
responsibilities of the Admissions Committee assigned it the authority for “adjusting entrance
credentials,” as well as the power to “exercise such discretion as shall subserve the equities in
particular cases without imperiling the general regulation.”
50
In other words, they were given
the power to both set the rules and make exceptions to them.
Snyder relished this policy and Sterling backed Snyder’s efforts to defend the discretion
afforded the Admissions Office throughout his presidency. In 1957, when Stanford published its
first self-study in a volume called The Undergraduate in the University, the faculty committee
behind the study criticized the ten-point scale. Specifically, the faculty committee expressed
47
In one report, Snyder wrote with exasperation, “Again this year, the members of the Faculty Committee on
Admissions failed to read any folders, despite repeated requests to do it.” J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of
Stanford University, Papers (SC0216, Box 7, Folder 18) Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
48
In 1959, The Committee on Admissions passed a motion affirming their faith in the Director of Admissions. “We
express our confidence in the Director of Admissions and support him in his use of judgment within the present
limits of his authority.” Excerpts from Minutes of Committee on Admissions. December 22, 1959. J. E. Wallace
Sterling, President of Stanford University, Papers (SC0216, Box A1, Folder 14) Department of Special Collections
and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
49
Beginning in 1929, Stanford adopted a “personal rating blank” for recommenders to complete. This appears to
have remained in use until the late 1940s when it was phased out in favor of a different approach to
recommendations. For an example of the form, see Patterson, Ruth. 1931. “Evaluation of a Personal Rating Blank
as Used at Stanford for Graduate Students.” Thesis (M.A.), Stanford, CA: Stanford University, School of Education,
page 5. It also asked recommenders to evaluate the student’s “manner and affect,” leadership, initiative (“does he
need constant prodding?”), ability to control emotions, and sense of purpose. It also asks if students have
“superior physique, athletic ability, normal health and strength, frequent sickness, some physical disability.”
50
“By-Laws of the Academic Council.” June 15, 1945. Richard Lyman, President of Stanford University (SC0215,
Series 1, Box 2, Folder: “Enrollment Data: Stanford”). Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
28
concerns about the four points allotted to a “personal rating,” which they felt to be “avowedly
subjective: determination of qualification is based upon the joint estimate of high school
counselors and admissions staff members of the student’s character, personality, motivation,
ability to survive at Stanford, anticipated contribution to the University community, and special
talents and abilities.”
51
The faculty committee sought a more formal approach, grounded in an
assessment of applicant qualities that they hoped would predict the likelihood of a student’s
“survival” at Stanford.
Snyder was furious about the report, which he felt did not appreciate the demands of
his office. He stressed that without his “freedom of judgment” Stanford would lose top
candidates from “prestige private schools.” He fiercely defended the admission of athletes, the
allotment of legacy admissions, and his power to admit students who were wealthy and
connected, despite his belief that the faculty “Admissions Committee would reject them.”
Objecting to the imposition of such a system for making admissions decisions, Snyder cracked,
“It is not ‘family-like’ to base all decisions affecting the family according to a formula.” He
saved his choicest criticism for the faculty, whom he deemed “irresponsible.” “They are
exercising authority without assuming the responsibility for their actions,” he continued. “They
will then leave the admissions staff with the responsibility of handling the consequences of
their actions and of explaining them to those affected by them, but with no authority to
51
Hoopes, Robert, and Hubert Marshall. 1957. The Undergraduate in the University: A Report to the Faculty by the
Executive Committee of the Stanford Study of Undergraduate Education, 1954-56. Stanford, Calif: Stanford
University. 18.
29
operate under principles and policies which we sincerely believe to be correct and best for
Stanford.”
52
Sterling supported Snyder in his effort to retain the freedom of his office and avoid what
Sterling thought to be the excessive meddling of the faculty. In a response to Snyder’s memo,
Sterling affirmed both his commitment to the policy and to Snyder’s desire to operate without
excessive faculty oversight. “The policy as stated is clear and agreeable, and I ask that you
utilize it in the administration of admissions to Stanford University. It is my further
understanding that the matter of consulting with the Subcommittee on Undergraduate
Admissions … is at your discretion.”
53
Thus empowered, Snyder continued to resist efforts by the faculty to direct the work of
his office until he resigned as Dean of Admissions in 1969. When Stanford completed its second
campus self-study, which took the form of a ten-volume report known as the “Study of
Education at Stanford” (SES), the faculty again found fault in the ten-point scale and flexibility it
afforded.
54
“The scheme would be more nearly described by a division which gave 4 points to
the prediction of academic achievement and 6 points to the personal ratings.”
55
The
52
Memo. Rixford K. Snyder to Wallace Sterling. February 10, 1958. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford
University, Papers (SC0216, Box A1, Folder 14). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
53
Memo. Wallace Sterling to Rixford K. Snyder. February 17, 1958. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford
University, Papers (SC0216, Box A1, Folder 14). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. Emphasis added. See also Memo. J. E. Wallace Sterling to Rixford K. Snyder.
January 28, 1960. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford University, Papers (SC0216, Box 7, Folder 18)
Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
54
Stanford University, ed. 1969. The Study of Education at Stanford: Report to the University. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University.
55
“Report to the Humanities and Sciences Faculty,” 1967(?), Office of Undergraduate Admissions, records, 1962-
2020 (SC1750, Folder 7). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif.
30
committee made a number of recommendations to improve the process and, importantly, to
undertake more systematic efforts to recruit minority candidates.
56
As he had a decade earlier, Snyder defended his office, complaining that SES unfairly
characterized his work and the policies that guided it. After a long list of questions and
concerns, Snyder concluded, “What disturbs me most, however, is the unfairness with which
the reports present the current admission procedures and ignore reality in their proposals.”
57
However, he did not just intend to defend the reputation of his office but its role in shaping the
university. He closed his correspondence on the matter by stating his “sincere conviction that
the University’s best interests are jeopardized by the … major recommendations.”
58
Toward the end of his tenure, in response to the changing tides of the campus and the
country, Snyder supported the university’s efforts to recruit more broadly and specifically to
recruit students from minoritized groups. But he also advocated for expanding religious and
geographic diversity, noting that “religious and geographical diversity are synonymous here
since the Jewish and Catholic population are concentrated in the Northeast.”
59
His conflation
56
Stanford University, ed. 1969. The Study of Education at Stanford: Report to the University. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University. 69. In part, the recommendation reads, “We make no recommendation on the number or
proportion of minority-group student Stanford should admit. There are too few now, and we can hardly foresee a
time when there will be too many.”
57
Memo. Rixford K. Snyder to Herbert Packer, Chairman, Steering Committee, Study of Education at Stanford.
September 16, 1968. Stanford University, President’s Office, Sterling-Pitzer Transitional Records 1946-1970
(SC0217, Box 3, Folder 2). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif.
58
Report. “Annual Report of the Office of Admissions to the President for the Academic Year 1957-1958. Rixford K.
Snyder to Provost Fred Terman. November 21, 1958. Annual Report of the President of Stanford University (SC
1103, Box 5, Folder “Administration 1957-58”) Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. See also: Memo. Rixford K. Snyder to Herbert Packer, Chairman, Steering
Committee, Study of Education at Stanford. August 29, 1968. Stanford University, President’s Office, Sterling-Pitzer
Transitional Records 1946-1970 (SC0217, Box 3, Folder 2). Department of Special Collections and University
Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
59
Memo. Rixford K. Snyder to Richard Lyman, Vice President and Provost. March 17, 1967. Lyman (Richard W.),
President of Stanford University, Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, Series 1, Box 1, Folder “Student-Faculty Sub-
31
of religion and demography, though framed within an effort to ensure a diverse student body,
inadvertently echoed his less generous response from the early 1950s. At the beginning of his
term in the Admissions Office, Snyder used demography to stanch the enrollment of Jewish
students; at the end, he employed demography as a recruitment tool. In both cases, however,
demography served as a proxy for identifying Jewish students.
Denial in Practice
Snyder acted with the tacit support of some in the president’s inner circle and within an
Admissions Office that was empowered by a policy that afforded him a great deal of discretion.
This combination of factors created a situation in Stanford admissions wherein Snyder could
reduce or restrict the number of Jewish students at Stanford by targeting specific high schools
known to have significant populations of Jewish students and still claim that the university did
not impose a quota on Jewish students.
University leadership took advantage of this technicality to dismiss claims that they
unfairly restricted admissions of Jewish students. In public statements and private
correspondence, Glover and Snyder each took advantage of the technical distinction between
Stanford’s formal policy and the literal definition of the term “quota” to reject and discredit
concerns about Jewish applicants and students. Sterling took a similar approach, though we
cannot determine whether or not he was acting with knowledge of Snyder’s efforts. When
alumni, parents, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL), and some trustees of the
Committee on Admissions 1967). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University
Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
32
university inquired about Stanford’s orientation toward admitting Jewish students, Glover,
Snyder, and Sterling rebuffed their concerns, sometimes taking umbrage that such a claim
would even be levied against the institution.
The first such letter we found was written in December 1954, 18 months and two
admissions cycles after the Glover Memo. An alumnus then serving as a judge in the Pacific
Northwest wrote a letter to a member of the Law School faculty sharing that he had heard
word “for more than a year” of Stanford’s quota on Jewish students. At first, he said, he
dismissed the concerns because they came from parents whose children were not accepted to
Stanford and because he knows “how unreliable such statements can be.” But, he observed,
they persisted. “Within the past week,” the author wrote, “two people, neither of whom is
acquainted with the other,” mentioned the limitation on Jewish students. “They also insisted
that the statistics of the entering classes clearly show a sharp drop in the percentage of Jewish
students who are admitted.” He concluded, “If these rumors are false, and I am in a position to
help stop them, I certainly will. However if they are true, I want to know about it.”
60
The letter
was forwarded to Fred Glover.
Glover’s reply was dismissive, describing the ten-point scale in order to explain that
“each applicant to Stanford is considered individually on the same three factors,” before
addressing the charges directly. “We are never accused of being anti-Catholic or anti-
Methodist but the charge does seem to arise sometimes, when a Jewish candidate is involved,
that the University is anti-Jewish.” He went on to explain that the university’s admissions
60
Letter. Gus Solomon to James Brenner, Stanford Law School. December 6, 1954. Lyman (Richard W.), President
of Stanford University, Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, Box 10, Folder “Discrimination: Religious (Incl. Jewish)”)
Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
33
procedures do not ask about religion, race, or “social background,” so “if anyone has statistics
on the proportion of Jewish students entering Stanford, the figures are not Stanford’s.” He
added, “If we had such information, we could defend ourselves better against charges of
discrimination, but if we maintained it, we would be open to charges that we kept the data to
establish quotas.” He closed the letter by extending his sympathies and offering a note of
cooperation and goodwill. “It disturbs us deeply to have such rumors circulating as you have
heard, and I hope that the above information will answer the questions which have been raised
in your own mind.”
61
In his reply, Glover also noted that this was not the first time Stanford was accused of
employing an “anti-Jewish” policy. He revealed that Stanford had recently been the subject of
an investigation by the ADL that focused on its use of quotas, but that “the University was
cleared of any anti-Jewish discrimination.” Glover tried to further minimize the judge’s
concerns by stating that “the source of these rumors is very likely the same as” those which led
to the first investigation, suggesting that they were hearing different accounts of the same
incident and that they not be taken too seriously. In dismissing the judge’s concerns, Glover did
not mention what he knew to be true: that the Admissions Office engaged in practices,
congruent with policy, that were intended to suppress the number of Jewish students at
Stanford.
Other letters arrived and earned responses from Glover, Sterling, and Snyder, all of
whom offered the same dismissive treatment. In a 1955 letter to a parent inquiring about the
61
Letter. Fred Glover to Gus Solomon. December 28, 1954. Lyman (Richard W.), President of Stanford University,
Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, Box 10, Folder “Discrimination: Religious (Incl. Jewish)”) Department of Special
Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
34
situation, Sterling commented on the “ugly suspicion,” writing “among those rejected are some
Jewish students well as Catholics, Methodists and adherents of other religions.”
62
He continued
to emphasize the university’s treatment of each applicant as an individual, but also noted that
this was not “the first time that a Jewish father or mother has written to us in a similar vein.”
Six years later, he responded to a handwritten letter from an alumna who recounted
being at a dinner party and hearing from several people that they “knew” that Stanford limited
the number of Catholic and Jewish students. She posed the question to President Sterling
directly, “Is there now or has there ever been in the past a quota on the number of Jewish or
Catholic students Stanford will accept?”
63
Sterling sharply denied the accusation, writing
“Stanford has no quotas of any kind, racial, religious or geographic. It follows, therefore, that
there are no quotas for Catholics or Jews. Statements or rumors to the contrary are wholly
false.” He continued, though, noting that he has known about concerns about Stanford’s
treatment of Jewish applicants:
It is interesting and significant to note that Stanford is not accused of being anti-Methodist or
anti-Presbyterian; nor do I recall that Stanford has been accused of being anti-Catholic; when
an anti-faith charge is made, it is usually that Stanford is anti-Jewish. This is simply not so. Why
people choose to believe rumor or fragmentary truth rather than fact, I do not know.
64
Written over the span of a few years, both Sterling’s and Glover’s letters employ a spurious
comparison between antisemitism and “anti-Methodism” and indicate the administration’s
62
Letter. Wallace Sterling to Jacob Chaitkin. May 31, 1955. Lyman (Richard W.), President of Stanford University,
Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, Box 10, Folder “Discrimination: Religious (Incl. Jewish)”) Department of Special
Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
63
Letter. Mrs. Hugo Oswald Jr. to President Wallace Sterling. February 21, 1961. Lyman (Richard W.), President of
Stanford University, Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, Series 1, Box 11, Folder “Policy: Religion”) Department of Special
Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
64
Letter. President Wallace Sterling to Mrs. Hugo Oswald Jr. March 6, 1961. Lyman (Richard W.), President of
Stanford University, Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, Series 1, Box 11, Folder “Policy: Religion”) Department of Special
Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
35
awareness that people had questions about admissions practices as they pertained to Jewish
applicants. Both men also dismissed the letter writers’ concerns as “rumors” to be dispelled,
not sincere concerns about the differential treatment of Jewish applicants.
The correspondence also evidences the close communications between Sterling, Glover,
and Snyder with respect to this matter. Sterling copied his responses to Snyder, and Glover
read and approved Sterling’s response from 1955. Snyder and Glover both knew of Sterling’s
responses and Sterling indicated that he knew about the other letters of concern. It also seems
unlikely that the president of the university would have been left in the dark about an
investigation by the Anti-Defamation League.
In spite of these efforts, the public impression that Stanford employed limits on Jewish
student enrollments led to a second ADL investigation in 1961. This time, Snyder offered a
rebuttal on behalf of his office and his practices, though it differed in strategy and tone. Unlike
Glover and Sterling, Snyder did not speak to broad policy issues, choosing instead to focus on
the immediate cases at hand. Snyder detailed the reasons for rejecting the two students on
whose behalf the complaint was lodged (one was given a place on the waiting list and the other
was the result for an “oversight only now discovered”). Understanding that Stanford rejected
many qualified candidates each year made his job in this letter relatively straightforward. He
relied on policy throughout, turning to both firm benchmarks (“Both girls had high school
records below 3.80, whereas all the girls we admitted last year on straight competition had
grades above 3.80.”) and more qualitative assessments (“Her record of participation other than
36
academic was not strong and she was given a ‘good’ but not ‘top’ committee rating.”) to
explain his decision.
65
In responding to the inquiry from the ADL, Snyder cooperated with Glover, drafting a
response that received Glover’s formal approval. To his reply to Stanley Jacobs, regional
director of the ADL, Snyder affixed a handwritten note. “OK Fred? I am holding letter pending
a reply from you before I drop it in box!” A reply reads, “Mr. Snyder notified 7/25 that letter is
ok.”
Despite Snyder and Glover’s efforts to deflect such inquiries, the questions persisted,
leading to a third inquiry from the ADL in 1966. This inquiry was brought to the administration
by Dick Guggenhime, then-president of the Board of Trustees (a position he held from 1964 to
1967). Guggenhime raised the issue again on the basis of “statistics sent to him by the Anti-
Defamation League” suggesting that “in the student body at large, in the freshman class of
1965, and in the graduate student body the percentages [of Jewish students] were low and
suggested a discriminatory quota.”
66
Calling this the “last and least satisfactory inquiry,” Snyder
prepared a document for Guggenhime documenting the university’s history in both admitting
Jewish students and in rebuffing claims like this one. Snyder noted that he had information
about the number of Jewish students, likely collected by the Chaplain’s Office, which indicated
65
Letter. Rixford K. Snyder to Stanley S. Jacobs, Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League. July 26, 1961. Lyman
(Richard W.), President of Stanford University, Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, series 1, Box 10, Folder “Discrimination:
Religious (Incl. Jewish)”). A few years later, an office memorandum mentions the family of a Jewish candidate who
was rejected who, Snyder believed, “are inclined to think discrimination was involved.” Memo. Robert J. Wert,
Office of the President to Rixford K. Snyder. May 18, 1964. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford University,
Papers (SC0216, Box B4, Folder 1). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University
Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
66
Rixford K. Snyder, May 21, 1969. “Comments on the Number of Jewish Students at Stanford.” Kenneth S. Pitzer
President of Stanford University, Papers (SC0218, Box 1C, Folder “Admissions (General) 69-70.”)
37
that the percentage of Jewish first-year students in the fall of 1965 was between 9.2% and
10%.
67
Snyder noted that the meeting with Guggenhime, which included a Judge Duniway and
a Mr. Raab, “had gone satisfactorily.”
68
Omitted from the document he had prepared was any mention of either the Glover
Memo or Snyder’s actions from the early 1950s.
In 1969, at the very end of his tenure as Dean of Admissions, Snyder made a
presentation to the Admissions Committee “on the number of Jewish students at Stanford.”
69
In notes prepared for the meeting, Snyder recounted a history of concerns regarding Jewish
students at Stanford. He recalled receiving a folder in 1950 “marked ‘Racial Discrimination –
lack of it at Stanford’” from Al Grommon. The folder, he said, included a single letter written by
Glover in response to an inquiry about “the number of Negro and Jewish students at Stanford.”
He recalled responding to Mr. Jacobs of the ADL, adding yet another inquiry from 1963, and he
recalled the meeting with Guggenhime, as well.
70
Referring to the implication that Stanford
had quotas on Jewish students, he asked rhetorically, “I don’t know how one can answer
questions concerning numbers if the assumption is that a particular number is low — what
number would be satisfactory?”
71
67
Rixford K. Snyder (n.d. 1966?) “Information gathered for Mr. Guggenhime and Judge Duniway for meeting with
Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Raab.” Kenneth S. Pitzer President of Stanford University, Papers (SC0218, Box 1C, Folder
“Admissions (General) 69-70.”)
68
The other participants were Judge Ben C. Duniway, who sat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit and was a graduate of Stanford Law School (1933). Mr. Raab was likely Earl Raab, of San Francisco’s Jewish
Community Relations Council. Rixford K. Snyder, May 21, 1969. “Comments on the Number of Jewish Students at
Stanford.” Kenneth S. Pitzer President of Stanford University, Papers (SC0218, Box 1C, Folder “Admissions
(General) 69-70.”)
69
Rixford K. Snyder, May 21, 1969. “Comments on the Number of Jewish Students at Stanford.” Kenneth S. Pitzer
President of Stanford University, Papers (SC0218, Box 1C, Folder “Admissions (General) 69-70.”)
70
This brings to four the total number of inquiries by the ADL during Snyder’s tenure.
71
Rixford K. Snyder, May 21, 1969. “Comments on the Number of Jewish Students at Stanford.” Kenneth S. Pitzer
President of Stanford University, Papers (SC0218, Box 1C, Folder “Admissions (General) 69-70.”)
38
Again, Glover supported Snyder’s obfuscations in a cover letter to Ken Cuthbertson
accompanying the documentation from the 1969 meeting. Glover explained, “Some Jewish
faculty members raised some questions about our admissions policies, and Rix responded in
these remarks, made to the Admissions Committee. His comments set forth some facts which
we have needed from time to time. I think our record is an excellent one.”
72
Snyder’s remarks
to the faculty omitted any mention of his expression of concern about Jewish students and any
indication that he had taken action to suppress the number of students from Beverly Hills High
School and Fairfax High School, or that Glover, Snyder, and others close to President Sterling
knew about and enabled his efforts.
Snyder’s actions had long-lasting effects beyond the campus, as the belief that Stanford
limited the number of Jewish students continued beyond his service in the Admissions Office.
In his first year as Dean of Admissions, Fred Hargadon sent a particularly pointed note to a
concerned parent:
Stanford does not have a Jewish quota. You’ll just have to take my word for that, since the kind
of “positive proof” you request seems impossible to come up with. We do not ask for ethnic or
religious background on our applications, we call each application as we see it, and I have no
idea how many Jewish students we’ve admitted this year or who they are.
73
Hargadon accurately noted that Stanford no longer asked about religion or ethnicity, adding
that Stanford only accepted 1,400 students from some 10,000 applications, and that people
attributed their rejections to an array of reasons. There is no evidence to suggest that
72
Memo. Fred Glover to Ken Cuthbertson. May 26, 1969. Kenneth S. Pitzer President of Stanford University,
Papers (SC0218, Box 1C, Folder “Admissions (General) 69-70.”)
73
Letter. Dean of Admissions Fred Hargadon to Mrs. Norman Licht. Stanford University, Provost's Office (SC0115,
Box 2, Folder “Folder “Admissions Office to 1971”). Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
39
Hargadon employed a quota of any kind on anyone, but the impression that there had been
quotas remained nevertheless.
Four years later, claims of quotas had become so widespread that the university found it
necessary to address them in the form letter sent to rejected applicants. Written in Hargadon’s
voice, the letter dismissed claims of quotas as “rumors” and went on to explain, “I do want to
state again (as I did in a letter to you before you applied) that we admit students on an
individual basis. We do not have quotas for particular schools, particular school systems, or for
geographical regions. Nor are there any racial, religious, ethnic, or sex-related quotas of any
kind.”
74
The letter illustrates just how widely assumed it was that Stanford employed quotas in
its admissions decisions.
Impressions of Quotas
Though letters from Stanford leadership uniformly dismissed such claims as “rumors,”
the Jewish community did not see it this way.
75
Its belief that Stanford placed restrictions on
the number of Jewish students it would admit reflected the reality of their shared experience,
particularly among Jews in Southern California, where Snyder focused his efforts. Robin
Kennedy, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended North Hollywood High School, recalled, “I
also heard when I was in high school that there was a Jewish quota.”
76
Mark Mancall, who also
74
Letter. March, 1974. Stanford University, Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Records 1962-1985 (SC1750, Box
1, File 6) Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
75
For a retrospective reflection on this phenomenon, see Mia Bruch. “Stanfordiaspora.” The Stanford Daily,
March 8, 1996. Page 5.
76
Kennedy, Robin. (2019) Stanford Historical Society Oral Histories, Stanford University (SC1017).
https://purl.stanford.edu/xq160wx3636. Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
40
grew up in Los Angeles and who later joined the faculty of Stanford’s History Department,
recalled a similar understanding. “I was told when I graduated Hollywood High School, ‘Don’t
apply to Stanford, because Jews have a very difficult time getting into Stanford.’ I didn't apply
to Stanford.”
77
Paul Seaver, who joined the Stanford faculty in 1964, described his impression of the
student body as “lily white,” a quality he attributed to “the head of admissions [who] had a
formula which required some quality called all around and all around automatically eliminated
Jews who weren’t all around. So it was the blondest place I’d ever seen.” Seaver came to
Stanford from Reed College, and in weighing his options, took note about what he had heard
regarding Stanford’s admissions processes. “The kids I knew at Reed said, ‘You can’t go to that
place. They don’t admit Jews, certainly not from Los Angeles.’ These kids were by and large
from Los Angeles. I couldn’t believe it but it was true.”
78
The point is not whether Seaver’s
impression of Stanford’s admissions processes was accurate, but that the impression was so
widespread.
Seaver, Mancall, and Kennedy’s recollections were born out in other oral histories
conducted for the Stanford Historical Society. New oral histories conducted for this project
corroborated the widespread impression that Stanford tried to limit the number of Jewish
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. Page 20. Kennedy also conveyed this understanding in a letter printed in the
Stanford Daily, writing “Jewish high school students in Los Angeles were discouraged by their college counselors
from applying Stanford in the '60s; it was widely believed that Stanford would not accept more than one Jew from
any one high school.” The Stanford Daily. May 31, 1996. Page 4.
77
Mancall, Mark. (2013) Stanford Historical Society Oral Histories, Stanford University (SC1017).
https://purl.stanford.edu/xq160wx3636. Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. Page 85.
78
Seaver, Paul S. (2016). Oral History. Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program Interviews (SC0932).
Department of Special Collections & University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
41
students.
79
One alumna from the Northwest had heard that Stanford employed quotas, but
only after she returned home at the end of her first year. Another, who graduated from Fairfax
High School, explained that despite his accomplishments in high school, he was denied
admission and was only accepted after the extraordinary efforts of his mother to lobby for a
transfer admission. Another testified that she did not apply to Stanford because she
understood that there had been quotas on Jewish students, adding that it was “common
knowledge” among her Jewish friends at her Los Angeles public high school.
Stanford could deny claims of quotas because, technically, the university did not have
them. In the early 1950s, the language of quotas had become the popular shorthand for
systematic biases in institutions, especially in higher education. Quotas had long existed but in
the late 1940s, the Anti-Defamation League’s “Crack the Quota” campaign drew new attention
to the problem quotas and led the charge with new efforts to expose them.
80
Among its first
efforts was a collaboration with the American Council on Education to “determine whether a
79
New oral histories were conducted with the promise of confidentiality, so no names are attributed and no direct
quotations provided. Previously conducted oral histories that note the pervasiveness of impressions of quotas
include Bienenstock, Arthur (2010). Stanford Historical Society Oral Histories, Stanford University (SC1017).
Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Bienenstock attributed Fred Hargadon’s recruitment efforts with bringing more Jewish students to Stanford. Page
19. See Also Abernathy, David (2009). Stanford Historical Society Oral Histories, Stanford University (SC1017).
Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. Abernathy
mentions knowing about “Jewish quotas” as well. Page 24. Harvey, Van Austin (2012). Stanford Historical Society
Oral Histories, Stanford University (SC1017). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. Harvey noted, “Stanford was so known throughout California as being, if not
anti-Semitic, at least not enthusiastic about having Jewish faculty or students. There were rumors that there were
quotas on admissions.” Page 24.
80
Crack the Quota was a massive effort and resulted in a few meaningful successes and numerous publications.
These included Belth, N.C. 1958. Barriers: Patterns of Discrimination against Jews. New York, NY: Friendly House
Publishers; Forster, Arnold. 1950. A Measure of Freedom. New York, NY: Doubleday and Company; Ivy, A.C., and
Irwin Ross. 1949. Religion and Race: Barriers to College? Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 153. New York, NY: Public
Affairs Committee, Inc. with the Cooperation of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
42
given applicant to an American college will be admitted by that college, or rejected.”
81
For the
project, pollster Elmo Roper sampled 10,000 high school seniors across the country and another
5,000 who lived in large cities, all of whom were slated to graduate high school in 1947.
82
He
concluded that Jewish students in the Northeast faced greater discrimination than did Catholics
or Protestants. “It does appear from the findings of this study that a certain sort of
discrimination against Jewish students applying to certain types of colleges in a particular part
of the country is a demonstrated fact.”
83
The Roper Report confirmed what many already suspected: that colleges and
universities employed unspecified procedures designed to disadvantage Jewish applicants. It
also concluded that the practices were more widespread and systematic than was previously
known. But its findings, while broadly accurate, also acknowledged important regional
differences. “With other applicants and particularly those from the South and West, the
religion factor seems to be of negligible influence, at least when compared to sex, legacy, and
quintile rating. The frequent charge against the colleges that they discriminate against Jewish
students seems, then, to be proven, but only in part and perhaps not nearly to the extent which
is frequently charged.”
84
81
Roper, Elmo, American Council on Education, and Committee on a Study of Discriminations in College
Admissions. 1949. Factors Affecting the Admission of High School Seniors to College. Washington: American
Council on Education. iii. Emphasis added. Funds for the project were provided by B’nai B’rith, the parent body of
the ADL at the time.
82
Citing dramatic regional differences between the experiences of “negro” and white students in Northern and
Southern schools, as well as the relatively low incidences of “negro” students applying to college, the study
excluded responses of African American students and it does not appear to highlight responses from Latinx or
Asian American students. Roper. Factors Affecting the Admission of High School Seniors to College. iii. The Roper
Report was cited regularly in books, articles, and other publications from B’nai B’rith, the Anti-Defamation League,
and the American Council on Education.
83
Roper. Factors Affecting the Admission of High School Seniors to College. LII.
84
Roper. Factors Affecting the Admission of High School Seniors to College. LIV.
43
Quotas, however, were not the only means used by universities against Jewish students
or applicants. Riv-Ellen Prell has documented how the leadership of the University of
Minnesota employed “antisemitism without quotas,” documenting formal and informal efforts
to suppress or marginalize Jewish students.
85
Similarly, Andrei S. Markovits and Kenneth
Garner’s history of Jewish students at the University of Michigan documents the ways in which
university president Alexander Ruthven used concerns about politics to temper a student body
that he thought was growing too politically active.
86
Neither Minnesota nor Michigan
employed quotas, but in both cases, campus leaders used concerns about politics to action
against students that they also knew to be Jewish.
Snyder’s efforts resembled the approaches of these two midwestern universities in
eschewing formal quotas and taking advantage of permissive policies regarding other actions.
As a result of this strategy, Stanford did not appear in the numerous volumes, reports, and
conferences organized in the wake of the Roper Report, neither did it feature in the ADL’s
reporting on its efforts to eradicate quotas in higher education.
87
This may have been because
it was still not a particularly desirable school for Jews on the East Coast (who represented the
85
Prell, Riv-Ellen. 2021. “Antisemitism without Quotas at the University of Minnesota in the 1930s and 1940s:
Anticommunist Politics, the Surveillance of Jewish Students, and American Antisemitism.” American Jewish History
105 (1–2): 157–88. See also “A Campus Divided: Progressives, Anticommunists, Racism and Antisemitism at the
University of Minnesota 1930-1942,” an exhibition curated for the University of Minnesota by Riv-Ellen Prell.
Available online: http://acampusdivided.umn.edu/index.php/about/
86
Markovits, Andrei S., and Kenneth Garner. 2020. The Boundaries of Pluralism: The World of the University of
Michigan’s Jewish Students from 1897 to 1945. Ann Arbor, MI: Maize Books.
87
Braverman, Harold, and Morton Puner. 1951. “The Barriers Are Coming Down.” The ADL Bulletin, January 1951;
Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1949. “Top U.S. Universities Open Parlay Today on Discrimination in College
Admissions;" The ADL Bulletin. 1949a. “What Are Your Chances of Getting into College?,” March 1949; ———.
1949b. “The Professors Are out to Crack Quota Barriers,” December 1949; ———. 1951. “The Maciver Report:
What’s It All About?,” November 1951; Tumin, Melvin M. 1961. An Inventory and Appraisal of Research on
American Anti-Semitism. New York, NY: Freedom Books; Waldman, Lester. 1957. “New Barriers to Higher
Education.” The ADL Bulletin, October 1957; Yinger, J. Milton. 1964. Anti-Semitism: A Case Study in Prejudice and
Discrimination. New York, NY: Freedom Books.
44
great majority of the American Jewish population at the time) or simply that Stanford did not
technically have a quota to crack. In any event, Stanford’s approach to admissions evaded the
attentions of the ADL’s organized efforts, formulated as they were to change policy by
leveraging a combination of research and public opinion.
In a sense, the ADL’s effort was too successful in framing the problem in higher
education around quotas. One unintended consequence was that the term became something
of a convenient if inexact shorthand for more subtle exclusionary practices of all kinds, despite
some disagreement about the size of the quota and its application.
88
Despite the ADL’s
successes with its Crack the Quota campaign, the term proved too narrowly technical to apply
to Stanford’s efforts, especially in a context in which some schools employed actual,
measurable, policy-level quotas on Jewish students, even in the years following World War II.
89
Whatever people suspected Stanford of, they tended to refer to it as a “quota,” which gave the
university a semantic escape hatch.
Suspicions of limits on the number of Jewish students outlived and ironically contributed
to what may have initially been a limited action by Snyder, exerted against specific high schools
during a discrete period of time. Whether or not he carried this practice through the remainder
of his tenure as Director and Dean of Admissions misses the larger point. The force of his
88
Estimations of the quota on Jewish students range from 3% to 22%. The 3% quota can be found in the oral
history of Robin Kennedy. Stanford Historical Society Oral Histories, Stanford University (SC1017)
https://purl.stanford.edu/xq160wx3636, page 89. Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. The 22% quota can be found in Synnott, Marsha Graham. 1986.
“Anti-Semitism and American Universities: Did Quotas Follow the Jews?” In Anti-Semitism in American History,
edited by David A. Gerber, 233–74. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Fn 38, p. 271.
89
Kalman, Jason. 2010. “Dark Places Around the University: The Johns Hopkins University Admissions Quota and
the Jewish Community, 1945-1951.” Hebrew Union College Annual 81: 233–79; Weitzman, Steven. “American
Biblical Scholarship and the Post-War Battle against Anti-Semitism.” (forthcoming).
45
actions, reinforced by denials that they took place, lodged themselves in the experiences and
perspectives of American Jews, particularly among those who lived in Southern California.
Snyder’s actions, however limited they may have been, dissuaded some Jewish students from
applying in the first place. The impression of Stanford’s restrictions outlived whatever actions
Snyder had taken.
Stanford’s Jewish Population
Stanford has had Jewish students since its earliest years.
90
Even the most parsimonious
accounting of Jewish students at Stanford finds a few each year dating back to the turn of the
20th century. But the population was never very large. Until 1947, the last year for which we
have regular data, the Office of the Chaplain surveyed students for their “religious preference.”
The Chaplain’s survey never found more than about 5 percent of Stanford students who
identified as Jewish (or “Hebrew,” as the Chaplain’s annual reports defined it).
91
Available data suggests that the number of Jewish students remained fairly small, even
by the university’s own account. Even the Glover Memo does not assert that Jews accounted
90
Annual Reports of the President of the University regularly included the results of the “Chaplain’s survey,” which
identified small numbers of Jewish students each year among members of the incoming class. Dr. Charles Petersen
generously compiled a table of available data and shared it via a link in his Substack newsletter. Making History
(blog). August 8, 2021. https://charlespetersen.substack.com/p/stanfords-secret-jewish-quota.
91
The Office of the Chaplain conducted annual surveys of student “religious preference,” which were dutifully
reported until 1947 by the Dean of Memorial Church, Elton Trueblood. When Trueblood left, subsequent
Chaplains were less assiduous about submitting their annual reports and the results of their annual surveys. There
is reason to doubt the accuracy of their surveys in any event, as Jewish students may not have wanted to identify
themselves as Jewish to a staff member of the Church. Or, as Snyder suggested to Stanley Jacobs of the ADL in
1961, “You are probably better able than I to assess how Jewish students might re-act (sic) to this question.”
Letter. Rixford K. Snyder to Stanley S. Jacobs, Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League. July 26, 1961. Lyman
(Richard W.), President of Stanford University, Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, series 1, Box 10, Folder “Discrimination:
Religious (Incl. Jewish)”).
46
for a significant proportion of all students on campus. “Rix is concerned that more than one
quarter of the applications from men are from Jewish boys. Last year we had 150 Jewish
applicants, of whom we accepted 50.”
92
That year, Stanford fielded 1630 applications from
males; 150 Jewish male applicants would have accounted for 9.2% of the overall pool.
Admitting 50 Jewish males would have meant they accounted for approximately 6.1% of 1952’s
810 openings in the incoming class.
93
This hardly represented an overwhelming proportion of
the student body. Whatever the actual size of Stanford’s Jewish population had been, both
survey data and oral histories attest that it was never very large.
By comparison, a B’nai B’rith report from 1963 found that 13.9% of UC Berkeley
students were Jewish. USC claimed to have a student body that was 12% Jewish, and Reed
College reported that 10.3% of its students were Jewish.
94
The report did not include data from
Stanford.
95
The most reliable data available about the number of Jewish students at Stanford comes
from a report released in February of 1967 by Stanford’s Counseling and Testing Center. The
92
Memo from Fred Glover to Wallace Sterling February 4, 1953. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford
University, Papers (SC0216, Box 7, Folder 14). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
93
Snyder, Rixford K. “Admissions Standards: Tough but Flexible.” Stanford Review (January 1958), 13-15. Stanford
University News Service (SC0122, Box 3, Folder 1). Department of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
94
The data on the percentages of Jewish students were collected by B’nai B’rith Hillel, and were based on reports
of local Hillel directors. They do not reflect data gathered by the leadership of the campuses. Jospe, Alfred. 1963.
Jewish Students and Student Services at American Universities. Washington D.C.: B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation. 6-9.
95
It is uncertain why Stanford was not included, as it did have a Hillel at this time. There was some skittishness
about reporting student religious identity to an off-campus entity, as evidenced in a memo by Fred Glover in
response to a request from B’nai B’rith Hillel in 1965. Citing Stanford’s Founding Grant, Glover wrote, “Note is
being made of this in view of Founding Grant admonition that no profession of religious faith shall be exacted of
anyone for any purpose. We have always felt that expression of religious preference, in Chaplain's survey, did not
violate this provision.” “Memo to files.” Fred Glover. December 3, 1965. Lyman (Richard W.), President of
Stanford University, Papers 1965-1981 (SC0215, series 1, Box 11, Folder “Policy: Religion”).
47
study was part of an American Council on Education study of first-year students, which was
administered at 307 campuses nationwide and led at Stanford by psychology professor John D.
Black. The report found that 6.8% of first-year students identified as Jewish, as compared to
14.4% who identified at Catholic and 66.1% who identified as Protestant; 6.1% of students
identified as “other” and another 6.5% said they had no religion.
96
But the report called the
“picture on religious background … confusing,” noting that “We enroll a higher percentage of
Jewish students than all institutions combined, but a substantially lower percentage than other
private universities. We also enroll a far higher percentage of students listing no religious
background than any other type of institution.”
97
Black noted that part of this story was demographic, and general trends support his
analysis. In overall numbers, the Jewish population of California grew during the 1950s and
1960s, accounting for a slightly larger share of U.S. Jews, overall. In 1948, California accounted
for 6.7% of American Jews, rising to 11.9% by 1971. But even though the Jewish population of
California grew rapidly during the 1950s and into the 1960s, it largely kept pace with the state’s
overall population growth, amounting to 3.3% of Californians in 1950 and 3.4% in 1967 (see
Appendix G for Jewish population data).
Black’s observation of Stanford’s own comparatively small Jewish population contained
a kernel of irrefutable truth: As long as the university continued to draw predominantly from
the West Coast, and largely from California, it would likely never draw significant numbers of
96
Report. Black, John, D. “Some Personal and Background Facts about Entering Stanford Freshmen.” February
1967. Cuthbertson (Kenneth M.) Papers 1941-1994 (SC0582, Box 97, Folder “Admissions 1967-1968”) Department
of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
97
Report. Black, John, D. “Some Personal and Background Facts about Entering Stanford Freshmen.” February
1967. Cuthbertson (Kenneth M.) Papers 1941-1994 (SC0582, Box 97, Folder “Admissions 1967-1968”) Department
of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. Page 13.
48
Jewish students.
98
The 1955 alumni directory provided data about Stanford alumni since the
university’s founding. The directory identified only 66 graduates from New York City, still home
to the largest Jewish community in the United States, while it conferred degrees on hundreds
of students from Los Altos and Menlo Park.
99
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Stanford took
only a handful of students from New York City high schools, both private or public, virtually
omitting the largest Jewish population in the United States at the time.
100
A good regional university in California that drew large numbers of its students from its
immediately surrounding counties, Stanford was not drawing from an applicant pool that
included a lot of Jews. It is impossible to determine whether the low numbers of students from
New York public schools is evidence of a bias on the part of the university or the fact that it was
an unattractive destination for those students, but it is clear that in the 1950s and 1960s large
numbers of students from New York public schools were not traveling west to attend Stanford.
As a result, the size of Stanford’s Jewish population was limited both by larger demographic
patterns and by broader impressions of the university by California Jews. Snyder’s efforts to
reduce the number of Jewish students by curtailing acceptances extended to graduates from
Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School certainly did not help.
98
In 1954, 65% of Stanford students came from in state. In 1960, that number decreased to 54%. Frederic Glover
to Wallace Sterling. August 4, 1961. “Increasing Number of Out-of-State Students.” J. E. Wallace Sterling, President
of Stanford University, Papers (SC0216, Box B1, Folder 1). Department of Special Collections and University
Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
99
Stanford Alumni Association, ed. 1956. Stanford University Alumni Directory. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press.
100
“Admissions Report” The Stanford Daily. Friday May 19, 1967, 8. The article questioned Stanford’s approach to
recruiting in the North East, noting that Stanford did not include a single New York City public school in its
recruiting efforts, adding that “Surely the University could defray the additional expense of having a representative
stop in New York on the way back from his visit to 34 New England prep schools.”
49
Conclusion
In the early 1950s, under the leadership of Rixford Snyder and with the awareness of
many in Stanford’s administration, Stanford Admissions acted to restrict the number of Jewish
students enrolling at Stanford. Written in 1953, the Glover Memo reported Snyder’s intentions
to act against Jewish students. It also revealed the complicity of Glover and others in the Office
of the President. Subsequent enrollment patterns reveal a sharp decline in Stanford students
who graduated from two high schools known to have significant populations of Jewish
students: Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School.
The impact was immediate and striking. Between the Glover Memo that expressed
Snyder’s concern about the number of Jewish students in February 1953 and the Registrar’s
Report of enrolled students from that fall, the number of students from Beverly Hills High
School and Fairfax High School began to decline. How sharp that decline or whether a similar
one was in evidence regarding graduates from other high schools remains unknown. But
Snyder clearly knew of these two high schools, and the number of students they sent to
Stanford dropped precipitously in the years that followed the Glover Memo. While admissions
from individual schools always fluctuated, no other public school experienced such a quick and
dramatic decline in the number of students it sent to Stanford.
Perhaps even more corrosively, in the years that followed the Stanford administration
employed the technical term “quota” to deny and dismiss claims that the university acted with
intention to suppress the number of Jewish students. In letters and in public, campus
leadership asserted that Stanford did not have a “quota,” while top members of the
administration had full knowledge of the policies in place that were designed to allow the
50
Director of Admissions to act to suppress the number of Jewish students admitted. They misled
alumni, the Anti-Defamation League, at least one trustee, and faculty.
Snyder acted in accordance with extant policy governing Stanford admissions that
afforded him a great deal of discretion. He also operated with the support, tacit and explicit, of
others in the administration. Snyder expressed his concerns to Glover, who relayed them to
Sterling. Glover explicitly condoned Snyder’s employment of an effort to suppress the number
of Jewish students at Stanford. No record exists of Sterling’s response, but the demonstrable
decline in the number of students from Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School
indicates that people at the highest levels of Stanford’s leadership, including the Provost and
the assistant to the President, did nothing to stop Snyder from acting.
How long this practice remained in place is also unknown. If it was ever committed to
writing, those memos did not survive. But the impact lasted for decades, largely refracted
through the understanding, popular among Jews in Southern California, that Stanford limited
the number of Jewish students it would admit. The impression that Stanford limited the
number of Jewish students it would accept, though refuted and dismissed a number of times
during the 1950s and 1960s, also discouraged Jewish students from applying, further stoking
the impression that Stanford limited the number of Jewish students. Thus, what might have
been a fairly limited action had far-reaching effects both on the size of Stanford’s Jewish
population and on the reputation of the school among California Jews.
The damage to Jewish high school students in the 1950s and 1960s who were unduly
denied admission and to Stanford’s reputation cannot be undone. Neither can the damage
brought by decades of denials. Though Sterling, Snyder, and Glover dismissed suspicions of
51
anti-Jewish admissions policies as “rumors,” the concerns turned out to have reflected a larger
truth and the university’s responses have had effects far beyond the incoming classes of 1953
or 1954.
This report has endeavored to establish and clarify this historical narrative, and
hopefully it has succeeded in clarifying the historical record. With this effort, Stanford’s
leadership has demonstrated that it is prepared not just to meet the specifics of this particular
case, but to do so within the larger historical context of the early 21
st
century. This report is a
small contribution to the larger effort of Stanford, among other leading American institutions,
to take account of its history and to construct a future informed by it.
52
Recommendations
In that spirit, we offer the following recommendations for enhancing the experiences of
Jewish students at Stanford. Admittedly, this is a difficult undertaking because the efforts to
suppress the number of Jewish students at Stanford in the 1950s do not map easily onto
contemporary expressions of antisemitism. There are, however, continuities, and they provide
an opportunity for the university to learn from its history and to inaugurate new directions for
addressing some of the core concerns shared by both the past and the present. In Judaism, the
process of הבושת (teshuva) implies both reflection on the past and the initiation of different
action in the future. Thus, our recommendations begin with an acknowledgement of the
university’s past misdeeds to build toward a better future for the whole Stanford community.
The recommendations took shape around the historical research that was
supplemented by preliminary interviews and focus groups with students that took place during
the 2022 Winter and Spring quarters. Mostly Jewish, the students with whom we spoke hold a
variety of identities with respect to nationality and citizenship, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and
race. They differ in their political orientations and academic interests, and they differ in
whether or not they identify as religious. Some have non-Jewish parents or partners. They
disagree about what it means to be Jewish and they share an array of definitions of
antisemitism. They also offered a diverse accounting of what it means and how it feels to be a
Jewish student at Stanford. All of the students with whom we spoke for this project, however,
shared a concern about antisemitism in the United States, around the world, and in the
Stanford community. These recommendations reflect their concerns.
53
Recommendation #1: Acknowledge and Apologize.
We recommend that Stanford publicly acknowledge its participation in admissions practices
designed to discriminate against Jewish students. We see this as directly connected to other
efforts to explore and address the history of Stanford, including those to rename campus
features. Currently, the Diversity Statement of Stanford IDEAL powerfully commits the
university to a vision of social justice. At present, it includes a paragraph that reads:
Stanford is built on land that was originally inhabited by the Muwekma Ohlone peoples.
Senator Stanford’s wealth that was used to found the university was built with the labor of
Chinese immigrant workers. Though the university was co-ed from its founding, Jane Stanford
imposed a quota on women students in 1896. It was not until 1972 that the Board of Trustees
voted to remove the gender quota entirely.
101
This paragraph should be amended to include a statement about the actions taken in the early
1950s to restrict the number of Jewish students and of the university’s sustained efforts to
mislead those who raised questions and concerns about those very efforts.
Furthermore, we recommend that current university administration publicly apologize
for the actions taken by its predecessors.
102
We recommend the apology focus on two specific
actions documented in this report. First, we recommend an apology for enabling actions in the
Stanford Admissions Office that sought to knowingly suppress the number of Jewish students
on campus. Second, we recommend an apology for intentionally misleading those who
expressed concerns or suspicions about such actions.
101
https://ideal.stanford.edu/about-ideal/diversity-statement
102
One possible analogue is the approach taken by Emory University, which discovered that “Jewish students in
Emory’s dental school were failed or forced to repeat courses at a rate disproportionate to their numbers from
1948 to 1961.” Emory responded to the discovery in 2012 with a formal apology for its actions.
https://emoryhistory.emory.edu/issues/discrimination/dental-school.html
54
Recommendation #2: Undertake a comprehensive study of
contemporary Jewish life at Stanford.
In order to develop a fuller sense of how best to enhance Jewish life at Stanford, we
recommend a comprehensive, thorough, and systematic study of Stanford’s Jewish community.
This study would explore issues related to the campus climate for Jewish students, staff, and
faculty, including, but not limited to access to religious and cultural opportunities and
programs, current policies and processes for religious accommodation including academic,
housing, and dining accommodations, and experiences of bias and antisemitism on campus.
Not reducible to a religion, an ethnicity, a culture, a nation, or a linguistic group, Jews
can be difficult to identify using standard methods for assessing campus climate. For example,
Jewish students shared with members of the task force that they did not feel the campus 2021
IDEAL diversity, equity, and inclusion survey adequately captured their experiences as Jews
owing, in part, to the complexity of Jewish identities and the limitations of the survey tools and
method.
103
For some, this felt doubly exclusionary. First, the survey instrument failed to
capture their experiences, and second, the survey results left the university with no insights
into the lives of its Jewish students and thus no way to take steps to improve it.
103
In May 2021, Stanford completed its first IDEAL diversity, equity, and inclusion survey. The survey included one
opportunity for Jewish students to identify themselves as Jews, as a response option to the prompt, “Please check
all the religious or spiritual groups with which you identify. (Mark all that apply).” The question likely failed to
capture the identities and experiences of many Stanford students, because younger American Jews are quite likely
to identify as Jewish and claim to have no religion. In failing to capture the range of ways in which Jews identify as
Jewish, the IDEAL survey missed an opportunity to account for the experiences of Jewish members of Stanford’s
community. Question 17. Stanford University, “IDEAL Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Survey.” Technical Report,
page 5. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JnUJoqx2MQ4WJEXhmV5uyzPTwDQA4K5h/view. 40% of American Jews
ages 18-29 say that they have “no religion.” Pew Research Center. 2021. “Jewish Americans in 2020.” Washington
D.C.: Pew Research Center. https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/. Page 8.
55
In interviews and focus groups conducted as part of the research for this report, the task
force found that members of the Stanford community have experienced antisemitism, which is
one area that appears ripe for redress. But antisemitism is a complex phenomenon, insofar as it
both resembles and looks distinct from other forms of systemic bias, prejudice, and hatred, and
even American Jews disagree about how to define it.
104
It is an expression of hate that has
proven to be a consistent feature of both White Nationalist thinking (on the political right) and
some forms of conspiracy theorizing (on the political left).
105
To cast it as purely a religious
concern overlooks both its historical origins and its contemporary forms, but to racialize it also
omits some of the ways in which antisemitism is woven deeply through certain strands of
Christian theology.
106
Similarly, the perpetuation of stereotypes that American Jews are
wealthy and powerful both derive from long-standing antisemitic claims and serve to undercut
efforts to call attention to antisemitism as a problem in need of redress.
107
Still others fail to
104
There are, at present, at least three “working definitions” of antisemitism that have emerged from Jewish
communities within the past two decades. There are others offered in more extensive works of scholarship. The
diversity of opinion on this matter is not evidence of terminological confusion but of the wealth of perspectives on
the matter and the likelihood that not everyone will ever agree on what it is, how it looks or sounds, and how best
to fight it. The IHRA definition can be found here: https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-
definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism; The Jerusalem Declaration can be found here:
https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/; for a working definition from the Association for Jewish Studies:
https://www.associationforjewishstudies.org/docs/default-source/ad-files/a-working-report-from-the-ajs-task-
force-on-antisemitism-and-academic-freedom.pdf?Status=Master&sfvrsn=5c4d54d_5
105
The popular press is brimming with stories, commentary, and accusations about these concerns. Two recent
articles that address them are: Grenell, Alexis. 2022. “How the Left Alienates Jews,” January 12, 2022.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bds-dsa-antisemitism-israel/; Ward, Eric. 2017. “Skin in the Game.”
Political Research Associates. Accessed April 7, 2022. https://politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-
how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism;
106
The literature on this is vast. Carroll, James. 2001. Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin; Favret-Saada, Jeanne. 2014. “A Fuzzy Distinction: Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism (An
Excerpt from Le Judaisme et Ses Juifs).” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4 (3): 335–40.
https://doi.org/10.14318/hau4.3.021; Heschel, Susannah. 2006. “From Jesus to Shylock: Christian Supersessionism
and ‘The Merchant of Venice.’” The Harvard Theological Review 99 (4): 407–31; Ruether, Rosemary R. 1974. “Anti-
Semitism in Christian Theology.” Theology Today 30 (4): 365–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/004057367403000407.
107
Schraub, David. 2019. “White Jews: An Intersectional Approach.” AJS Review 43 (2): 379–407. Many of these
stereotypes can be traced to the infamous forgery known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Katz, Steven T.,
and Richard Landes. 2012. The Paranoid Apocalypse : A Hundred-Year Retrospective on The Protocols of the Elders
56
recognize antisemitism in their midst and seek to explain away events that American Jews
might experience as antisemitic. Our preliminary interviews revealed this as a particular point
of concern for Jewish students.
108
Understanding antisemitism is further complicated by its entanglement in political
debates about Israel and Palestine. We understand the sensitive nature of that sphere of
political discourse and we respect and uphold the university’s commitment to academic
freedom and the right to free speech. Additionally, we appreciate the vital role that activism
plays in the formation of students’ political and civic attitudes. The State of Israel, like all
sovereign states, deserves careful scrutiny and its policies deserve robust debate and
discussion. Yet, preliminary interviews with students revealed that in some cases campus
discourse around Israel and Palestine made claims about Jews that students felt were
antisemitic in their impact.
Antisemitism, like so many American prejudices, thrives in the darkness. Some 70 years
ago, Snyder, Glover, and others dismissed concerns that they had acted against Jewish
applicants, even though they knew the truth. An appropriate response to these events and to
the contemporary moment would be to undertake a full exploration of Jewish life on campus so
that we might better understand how Jews at Stanford are impacted by antisemitism in our
of Zion. Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies Series. New York: NYU Press; Whitfield, Stephen. n.d. “Why the
‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ Is Still Pushed by Anti-Semites More than a Century after Hoax First Circulated.”
The Conversation. Accessed May 4, 2022. http://theconversation.com/why-the-protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion-is-
still-pushed-by-anti-semites-more-than-a-century-after-hoax-first-circulated-145220; Zipperstein, Steven J. 2018.
Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. First edition. New York ; London: Liveright Publishing Corporation;
Zipperstein, Steven J. 2020. “The Conspiracy Theory to Rule Them All.” The Atlantic. August 25, 2020.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/conspiracy-theory-rule-them-all/615550/.
108
Rosenberg, Yair. 2022. “Why So Many People Still Don’t Understand Anti-Semitism.” The Atlantic. January 19,
2022. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/texas-synagogue-anti-semitism-conspiracy-
theory/621286/.
57
community, and so that we might better understand it and work toward exposing and
minimizing it.
Recommendation #3: Develop and include modules addressing Jews
and Jewish identity in appropriate future educational trainings,
seminars, and programs intended to make ours a more equitable,
inclusive, and just community.
Inasmuch as the campus seeks to honor and engage its members across a range of
diverse identities, we recommend that the university include Jews and Jewishness within these
efforts. Jews are a diverse and distinct diasporic community whose specific histories are often
elided, marginalized, or misrecognized. Misrecognition can sometimes foster antisemitic
beliefs about Jews and can easily apply old and surprisingly durable stereotypes to historical
and contemporary realities. Allowing these beliefs to continue to circulate unaddressed
exacerbates the challenges we face as a campus community and as global citizens.
Failing to address Jews and antisemitism in specific campus-based educational efforts
intended to embrace the diversity of the Stanford community sends everyone the message that
Jews are not an American minority that still faces systematic hatred. This, in turn, reinforces
the sense that antisemitism is not an issue worthy of attention and that serves as tacit support
for or tolerance of antisemitic beliefs or actions. This posture can also have the effect of
allowing claims about antisemitism to be met with opposition or disregard instead of curiosity,
concern, or support.
58
We are aware that the administrative structure and particular mechanisms for
cultivating the strength of Stanford’s diverse community will change. We are aware that the
needs of the community will change as well. Therefore, we are not making a recommendation
in favor of a specific programmatic intervention. Instead, we recommend that careful attention
to the experiences of Jewish community members be integrated into campus efforts, whatever
forms they might take.
Recommendation #4: The ASSU should enforce the Undergraduate
Senate’s “Resolution to Recognize Anti-Semitism in Our Community,”
(UGS-W2019-23).
Adopted by unanimous approval of the Undergraduate Senate on February 29, 2019, the
Resolution instituted a required annual anti-antisemitism training for the Undergraduate
Senate.
109
It reiterated that the ASSU had, in 2016, heard a “Resolution to Recognize and
Reaffirm the Fight Against Anti-Semitism” (UGS-S2016-1)
110
, which included a clause requiring
the Undergraduate Senate to “commit to actively fighting anti-Semitism on campus” and “to
commit to one anti-Semitism training session per year about the history of anti-Semitism and
current manifestations, that will be led by the Jewish Studies Department and various members
of student (sic) and faculty from the Jewish community, that will consult the Anti-Defamation
League.” Despite some technical issues in the wording of the two resolutions, the charge to
109
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17SvDX8wf-XP3cNmgfPYrmr7_NWunJntyh8J3Jpwsgcc/edit
110
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1ApeqGz1gZNcWPZbr00160LobMJiPcTqsB8QksyirIoU/pub
59
require engagement with the faculty in Jewish Studies was included in UGS-W2019-23 and
should be enforced.
111
To date, it has not been.
Enforcing the Resolution will hold student leadership to their own commitment to
fighting antisemitism on campus and it will, hopefully, expand their understanding of
antisemitism both past and present. Advancing this educational measure in collaboration with
the faculty of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies will aid the university’s efforts to address the
concerns of Jewish students when such issues arise, and to build a culture of student leadership
that will prevent them, hopefully, from arising in the first place.
Recommendation #5: Schedule the opening of the school year so that it
does not coincide with the Jewish High Holidays and specifically Yom
Kippur and Rosh Hashana.
Archival sources going back to 1965 reveal that this has been an ongoing concern.
112
The
scheduling conflict puts Jewish students in a position to choose whether to observe the holiday
or attend class. Regardless of student levels of observance or adherence to Jewish law or
tradition, this is not a choice that students, faculty, or staff should have to either make or
explain. Scheduling the first day of classes on the High Holidays communicates the message
that the university is prepared to pit students’ desires to participate in their distinctive
111
It is unclear if UGS-S2016-1 was adopted by the Undergraduate Senate; Stanford does not have a Jewish Studies
Department; and the author certainly meant “anti-antisemitism training.”
112
See Henry Briggs, “Record Register.” The Stanford Daily, September 29, 1965, 1. The short article noted,
“Because of the holiday, the late registration fees will not be in effect.”; See also “A Petition to the University
Ombudsman, Mrs. Lois Amsterdam, and the Stanford Board of Trustees.” Nov 4, 1971. Stanford University,
Provost's Office (SC0115, Box 1, Folder “University calendar/holidays 1971-1972”). Department of Special
Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
60
communal rituals against their commitments to the institution. This is likely much worse for
first-year students. For decades, the university has put students in this position, which has
perpetuated the sense that the campus is less than eager to accommodate the needs of Jewish
students. It also sends the message to the larger community about the value of their Jewish
peers’ commitments to Jewish practice. Despite efforts by students, faculty, and Hillel
(including a letter writing campaign that probably dated from the 1980s), the university still
schedules important events on the dates of Jewish holidays. At the time of this writing, the first
day of classes for the Fall Quarter of 2022 is scheduled to coincide with the first day of Rosh
Hashana (September 26, 2022).
Aligning the academic calendar so that it does not conflict with the Jewish Holidays
might seem like a simple or even largely symbolic act, though that would not explain why it still
happens, despite past efforts. Nevertheless, altering the academic calendar to prevent conflicts
with the Jewish High Holidays would be a significant step toward honoring the needs of
Stanford’s Jewish community.
Recommendation #6: Provide for student religious and cultural needs in
housing and dining.
Religiously observant students have a unique set of needs and concerns that run from
the maintenance of dietary laws (kashrut or “keeping kosher”) to prohibitions on operating
electrical devices on the Sabbath (which prohibits using electronic “key cards” to open doors on
the holiday). Student requests for such accommodations have, in recent years, been ignored
and flatly declined, forcing Jewish students to either advocate for their needs with additional
61
time and effort or abandon their concerns and learn to work around them.
113
The needs of
Jewish students in this regard touch on some fundamental considerations about where one
lives, how one eats, and how one navigates the campus. These needs should not compromise
considerations for safety of people and buildings, nor should they conflict with the campus’
vision for rich residential educational experiences. But failing to address these needs creates an
environment that can make it difficult for observant Jewish students to thrive at Stanford.
Recommendation #7: Clarify the relationship between the university
and Stanford Hillel.
It is beyond the scope of this task force to recommend what such an agreement would entail,
but it is clear that Hillel does much of the work on campus caring for and serving Jewish
students and students interested in Jewish life. Yet, Hillel’s status as a non-Stanford entity
means that it is not included in campus discussions with other identity-based community
centers, and that neither Hillel nor the university are beholden to one another in any formal
way. On campuses like Stanford, Hillel stepped into the historical breach, raising funds and
gathering resources to serve Jewish students. At Stanford, this resulted in a thriving student-
facing organization that was not “on campus” either physically or geographically.
114
It
developed successfully but on its own, effectively becoming the largest service provider for
Jewish students at Stanford, which meant that the university could (and still sometimes does)
113
The task force has emails from Jewish students asking for religious accommodations and being told that
Stanford does not make accommodations for religious needs. They can be shared at the Administration’s request.
114
Stanford’s first Hillel was a student group, established in 1949. A decade later, it evolved into a Hillel
Foundation, and for the ensuing years operated out of an apartment above an auto-repair shop on Emerson
Avenue.
62
refer Jewish students to Hillel when issues arise without, at the same time, affording Hillel
access or authority to resolve some of these issues.
This peculiar relationship has placed a good deal of stress on Hillel, on the university,
and on students. When the university administration refers students to Hillel or asks that Hillel
address certain problems presented to Jewish students, it can seem like the university is not
treating Jewish students fairly or fully as members of the campus community. With its mission
to serve Jewish students, Hillel is prepared to respond. The arrangement is functional but not
ideal and its shortcomings often emerge at precisely the moments of greatest stress on
campus. Though it is beyond the scope of this task force to outline the exact nature of this
relationship, we strongly recommend that Stanford’s leadership and Hillel’s respective
leadership begin a process toward a more defined, mutually beneficial arrangement that
reflects Stanford’s broad commitment to honoring and including students of all backgrounds.
63
Appendix A: The Glover Memo
February 4, 1953
Dear Wally:
Rix Snyder came in to report that admission applications, compared with those at this date last
year, were 10 more for men and 190 for women. This trend last year led to a class of 1750 men
and 1100 women.
Rix is concerned that more than one quarter of the applications from men are from Jewish
boys. Last year we had 150 Jewish applicants, of whom we accepted 50. This condition appears
to apply one [sic] to men; there does not seem to be any increase in applications from Jewish
girls.
As things look to Rix now, he will be able to pick 500 men, equal in caliber to last year’s fresh
class, but there will be a high percentage of Jewish boys in the 300 freshmen who will be at
Stanford village.
Rix said that he thought that you should know about this problem, since it has very touchy
implications. He pointed out that the University of Virginia has become largely a Jewish
institution, and that Cornell also has a very heavy Jewish enrollment. Harvard and Yale stick
strictly to a quota system. Rix has been following a policy of picking the outstanding Jewish boys
while endeavoring to keep a normal balance of Jewish men and women in the class.
There are, he said, a number of high schools in Los Angeles — Beverly Hills and Fairfax are
examples — whose studentbody [sic] runs from 95 to 98% Jewish. If we accept a few Jewish
applicants from these schools, the following year we get a flood of Jewish applications. Rix says
that apparently the information as to who is accepting or rejecting Jewish students travels fast
though [sic] the underground. Rix also has had trouble on this score in Portland, where at one
high school he met with a group of students and parents interested in Stanford and found that
the whole group was Jewish.
Rix feels that this problem is loaded with dynamite and he wanted you to know about it, as he
says that the situation forces him to disregard our stated policy of paying no attention to the
race or religion of applicants. I told him that I thought his current policy made sense, that it was
a matter requiring the utmost discretion, and that I would relay these highlights of our
conversation to you and let Rix know if you had different views.
FG
64
Appendix B: Methodology for Historical Research
The research for this report was largely archival in nature. We began, however by reading
broadly in four areas of scholarship: histories of Stanford University, admissions in American
higher education, post-war American Jewish history, and the historical study of antisemitism in
the United States. Our work was informed more broadly by the expertise of the task force in
these areas, as well.
The bulk of our research efforts focused on the archives of Stanford University. We examined
the collections of The Admissions Office, The Academic Secretary (Donald Winbigler), President
Richard Lyman, Professor Robert Rosenzweig, the Academic Senate Council, the Office of the
Registrar, Provost Fred Terman, Fred Glover, President J. E. Wallace Sterling, the Sterling-Pitzer
transition papers, Ray Lyman Wilbur, ATO (Fraternity), Memorial Church, Student Affairs, the
Stanford University News Service, The Stanford Study of Undergraduate Education, Don
Carlson, and Kenneth Cuthbertson.
We also examined Stanford University publications including The Quad (Stanford’s annual
yearbook), the Stanford Review (alumni magazine), Annual Reports to the President, the
Stanford Bulletin, and the Stanford Daily. We also read publications that emerged from
Stanford’s two self-studies: The Undergraduate in the University (1957) and the Study of
Education at Stanford (1968).
In order to round out our understanding of American Jewish life in the decades following World
War II, we consulted with colleagues at the American Jewish Archives, the Magnes Collection of
Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley, the American Jewish Congress, the
American Jewish Historical Society, and the archives of the Anti-Defamation League. Jewish
population data was compiled from population estimates published annually in the American
Jewish Year Book.
Finally, we conducted 21 interviews with Stanford alumni from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as
5 supplementary interviews with people who were Jewish high school students in Los Angeles
during the 1950s and 1960s. To inform the recommendations, we held two focus groups, one
with graduate students and one with undergraduate students, as well as 10 individual
interviews. Most of the interviews were held on Zoom.
65
Appendix C: Methodology for Quantitative Analysis
The Registrar’s Reports presented data on student admissions annually. With respect to the
public high schools whose graduates enrolled in Stanford, the Registrar published data as the
sum of enrollments over the span of three years. The Registrar’s Report for 1952 included
student enrollment totals for 1950, 1951, and 1952 combined. The Registrar’s report for 1953
presented student enrollment data for 1951, 1952, and 1953 combined, and so forth. This was
the convention for each of the Registrar’s Reports to which we had access. Although this
practice obscured annual totals, a key for calculating possible combinations of enrollments
could be identified in the three-year totals.
We focused on Fairfax High School and Beverly Hills High School because Glover called
them out by name in the memo he wrote to Sterling. The 1955 and 1956 Registrar’s Reports
indicated that only a single student from Fairfax had enrolled at Stanford in each of those three-
year spans. This meant that one student had enrolled in the years 1953, 1954, and 1955
combined. And, it also meant that only one student had enrolled in the years 1954, 1955, and
1956 combined. Because the aggregate reported value declines to a relatively small number in
reports from 1955 and 1956, we are able to exhaustively determine all possible combinations of
admitted students for any individual year. Through this method we report a range in the
number of admits from between the years of 1950 and 1958, inclusive.
Because the number of enrollments from Fairfax declined to only a single student for
two consecutive reporting periods, there were only three possible combinations of annual
admissions. For students from Beverly Hills High School, there were 125 possible combinations.
The following table represents the calculations, with the shaded cells indicating the first
wave of calculations required to generate the three-year totals presented in the Registrar’s
Reports. Once we established these as the only possibilities, we looked forward and back in
time to calculate what other three-year combinations of enrollment numbers might total the
amount in the Registrar’s Reports for a given year.
Table 1: Initial Calculations for Fairfax High School
Year of Report
1953
1954
1955
1956
Years included in the report
1950-1953
1951-1954
1952-1955
1953-1956
Number of enrollments reported
15
9
1
1
Possible combination #1
0
1
0
0
Possible combination #2
0
0
1
0
Possible combination #3
1
0
0
1
We followed the same procedure for calculating enrollments from Beverly Hills High School,
though in this instance, the key number was 13, which appeared in both the 1955 and 1956
Registrar’s Reports. We began by generating a list of all possible three-number combinations
66
that total 13 and putting them into a spreadsheet, with each number corresponding to a
possible number of enrollments from a given year. We knew that the number of enrollments in
1953, 1954, and 1955 totaled 13, as did the number of enrollments in 1954, 1955, and 1956.
Based on the relationships between the annual tallies and the three-year totals we were able to
tabulate all of the possible combinations and establish a range for annual enrollments.
Mathematically, the process can be represented like this:
115
Since we have the constraint that V ≥ 0 this limits the system of equations in such a way that,
whereas it is still not solvable, we can feasibly report a range for each V
t
.
For Fairfax HS, and BHHS, respectively, the righthand sides of the system of equations
are:
There are (A
t
+2/2) distinct, nonnegative, integer-valued vectors [V
t-2
, V
t-1
, V
t
] which satisfy A
t
=
V
t-2
+ V
t-1
+ V
t
. For Fairfax HS, note that A
f
1955
= 1, and therefore there are only (3/2) = 3 possible
such vectors [V
1953
, V
1954
, V
1955
]. Due to the recursive definition of A
t
, there therefore are only 3
such vectors for all values of [V
t-2
, V
t-1
, V
t
]. For BHHS, however, A
BH
1955
=13, and therefore there
are (15/2) = 105 possible such vectors for all values of [V
t-2
, V
t-1
, V
t
].
115
With special gratitude to Izzy Aguiar, PhD candidate in Computational and Mathematical Engineering at
Stanford, for checking our calculations and deriving the mathematical basis for our conclusions in this section.
67
Appendix D: Enrollment Data from Selected Public High Schools as
Presented in Registrar’s Reports 1952-1960
68
Appendix E: All Possible Combinations of Annual Enrollments at Stanford
from Fairfax High School, 1950-1958
Year of Registrar’s Report
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1957-
1958
Years Covered in the Report
--
--
1949-
1952*
1950-
1953
1951-
1954
1952-
1955
1953-
1956
1954-
1957
1955-
1958
Number of Enrollments Reported
--
--
20
15
9
1
1
2
4
Possible combination #1
5
7
8
0
1
0
0
2
2
Possible combination #2
5
6
9
0
0
1
0
1
3
Possible combination #3
6
7
8
1
0
0
1
1
2
* The ranges presented in the Registrar’s Reports cover three academic years, though they span four
calendar years. For example, the Registrar’s Report of 1952 covers enrollments from the academic years
1949-1950, 1950-1951, and 1951-1952.
69
Appendix F: All Possible Combinations of Annual Enrollments at Stanford
from Beverly Hills High School, 1950-1958
Year of Registrar's Report
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1957-
1958
Years Covered in the Report
--
--
1949-
1952*
1950-
1953
1951-
1954
1952-
1955
1953-
1956
1954-
1957
1955-
1958
Number of Enrollments Reported
--
--
67
47
29
13
13
16
24
Possible combination #1
20
22
25
0
4
9
0
7
17
Possible combination #2
20
23
24
0
5
8
0
8
16
Possible combination #3
20
24
23
0
6
7
0
9
15
Possible combination #4
20
25
22
0
7
6
0
10
14
Possible combination #5
20
26
21
0
8
5
0
11
13
Possible combination #6
20
27
20
0
9
4
0
12
12
Possible combination #7
21
21
25
1
3
9
1
6
17
Possible combination #8
21
22
24
1
4
8
1
7
16
Possible combination #9
21
23
23
1
5
7
1
8
15
Possible combination #10
21
24
22
1
6
6
1
9
14
Possible combination #11
21
25
21
1
7
5
1
10
13
Possible combination #12
21
26
20
1
8
4
1
11
12
Possible combination #13
21
27
19
1
9
3
1
12
11
Possible combination #14
22
20
25
2
2
9
2
5
17
Possible combination #15
22
21
24
2
3
8
2
6
16
Possible combination #16
22
22
23
2
4
7
2
7
15
Possible combination #17
22
23
22
2
5
6
2
8
14
Possible combination #18
22
24
21
2
6
5
2
9
13
Possible combination #19
22
25
20
2
7
4
2
10
12
Possible combination #20
22
26
19
2
8
3
2
11
11
Possible combination #21
22
27
18
2
9
2
2
12
10
Possible combination #22
23
19
25
3
1
9
3
4
17
Possible combination #23
23
20
24
3
2
8
3
5
16
Possible combination #24
23
21
23
3
3
7
3
6
15
Possible combination #25
23
22
22
3
4
6
3
7
14
70
Possible combination #26
23
23
21
3
5
5
3
8
13
Possible combination #27
23
24
20
3
6
4
3
9
12
Possible combination #28
23
25
19
3
7
3
3
10
11
Possible combination #29
23
26
18
3
8
2
3
11
10
Possible combination #30
23
27
17
3
9
1
3
12
9
Possible combination #31
24
18
25
4
0
9
4
3
17
Possible combination #32
24
19
24
4
1
8
4
4
16
Possible combination #33
24
20
23
4
2
7
4
5
15
Possible combination #34
24
21
22
4
3
6
4
6
14
Possible combination #35
24
22
21
4
4
5
4
7
13
Possible combination #36
24
23
20
4
5
4
4
8
12
Possible combination #37
24
24
19
4
6
3
4
9
11
Possible combination #38
24
25
18
4
7
2
4
10
10
Possible combination #39
24
26
17
4
8
1
4
11
9
Possible combination #40
25
26
16
4
9
0
4
12
8
Possible combination #41
25
18
24
5
0
8
5
3
16
Possible combination #42
25
19
23
5
1
7
5
4
15
Possible combination #43
25
20
22
5
2
6
5
5
14
Possible combination #44
25
21
21
5
3
5
5
6
13
Possible combination #45
25
22
20
5
4
4
5
7
12
Possible combination #46
25
23
19
5
5
3
5
8
11
Possible combination #47
25
24
18
5
6
2
5
9
10
Possible combination #48
25
25
17
5
7
1
5
10
9
Possible combination #49
25
26
16
5
8
0
5
11
8
Possible combination #50
25
18
23
6
0
7
6
3
15
Possible combination #51
26
19
22
6
1
6
6
4
14
Possible combination #52
26
20
21
6
2
5
6
5
13
Possible combination #53
26
21
20
6
3
4
6
6
12
Possible combination #54
26
22
19
6
4
3
6
7
11
Possible combination #55
26
23
18
6
5
2
6
8
10
Possible combination #56
26
24
17
6
6
1
6
9
9
Possible combination #57
26
25
16
6
7
0
6
10
8
Possible combination #58
27
18
22
7
0
6
7
3
14
71
Possible combination #59
27
19
21
7
1
5
7
4
13
Possible combination #60
27
20
20
7
2
4
7
5
12
Possible combination #61
27
21
19
7
3
3
7
6
11
Possible combination #62
27
22
18
7
4
2
7
7
10
Possible combination #63
27
23
17
7
5
1
7
8
9
Possible combination #64
27
24
16
7
6
0
7
9
8
Possible combination #65
28
18
21
8
0
5
8
3
13
Possible combination #66
28
19
20
8
1
4
8
4
12
Possible combination #67
28
20
19
8
2
3
8
5
11
Possible combination #68
28
21
18
8
3
2
8
6
10
Possible combination #69
28
22
17
8
4
1
8
7
9
Possible combination #70
28
23
16
8
5
0
8
8
8
Possible combination #71
29
18
20
9
0
4
9
3
12
Possible combination #72
29
19
19
9
1
3
9
4
11
Possible combination #73
29
20
18
9
2
2
9
5
10
Possible combination #74
29
21
17
9
3
1
9
6
9
Possible combination #75
29
22
16
9
4
0
9
7
8
Possible combination #76
29
18
19
10
0
3
10
3
11
Possible combination #77
29
19
18
10
1
2
10
4
10
Possible combination #78
30
20
17
10
2
1
10
5
9
Possible combination #79
30
21
16
10
3
0
10
6
8
Possible combination #80
31
18
18
11
0
2
11
3
10
Possible combination #81
31
19
17
11
1
1
11
4
9
Possible combination #82
31
20
16
11
2
0
11
5
8
Possible combination #83
32
18
17
12
0
1
12
3
9
Possible combination #84
32
19
16
12
1
0
12
4
8
Possible combination #85
33
18
16
13
0
0
13
3
8
Possible combination #86
20
28
19
0
10
3
0
13
11
Possible combination #87
21
28
18
1
10
2
1
13
10
Possible combination #88
22
28
17
2
10
1
2
13
9
Possible combination #89
23
28
16
3
10
0
3
13
8
Possible combination #90
20
29
18
0
11
2
0
14
10
Possible combination #91
21
29
17
1
11
1
1
14
9
72
Possible combination #92
22
29
16
2
11
0
2
14
8
Possible combination #93
20
30
17
0
12
1
3
12
9
Possible combination #94
21
30
16
1
12
0
1
15
8
Possible combination #95
20
31
16
0
13
0
0
16
8
Possible combination #96
23
28
16
3
10
0
3
13
8
Possible combination #97
22
28
17
2
10
1
2
13
9
Possible combination #98
21
28
18
1
10
2
1
13
10
Possible combination #99
20
28
19
0
10
3
0
13
11
Possible combination #100
22
29
16
2
11
0
2
14
8
Possible combination #101
21
29
17
1
11
1
1
14
9
Possible combination #102
20
29
18
0
11
2
0
14
10
Possible combination #103
21
30
16
1
12
0
1
15
8
Possible combination #104
20
30
17
0
12
1
0
15
9
Possible combination #105
20
31
16
0
13
0
0
16
10
Possible combination #106
20
21
26
0
3
10
0
6
18
Possible combination #107
21
20
26
1
2
10
1
5
18
Possible combination #108
22
19
26
2
1
10
2
4
18
Possible combination #109
23
18
26
3
0
10
3
3
18
Possible combination #110
20
20
27
0
2
11
0
5
19
Possible combination #111
21
19
27
1
1
11
1
4
19
Possible combination #112
22
18
27
2
0
11
2
3
19
Possible combination #113
21
19
28
0
1
12
3
1
20
Possible combination #114
21
18
28
1
0
12
1
3
20
Possible combination #115
21
17
29
0
0
13
0
3
21
Possible combination #116
23
18
26
3
0
10
3
3
18
Possible combination #117
22
19
26
2
1
10
2
4
18
Possible combination #118
21
20
26
1
2
10
1
5
18
Possible combination #119
20
21
26
0
3
10
0
6
18
Possible combination #120
22
18
27
2
0
11
2
3
19
Possible combination #121
21
19
27
1
1
11
1
4
19
Possible combination #122
20
20
27
0
2
11
0
5
19
Possible combination #123
21
18
28
1
0
12
1
3
20
Possible combination #124
20
19
28
0
1
12
0
4
20
73
Possible combination #125
20
18
29
0
0
13
0
3
21
* The ranges presented in the Registrar’s Reports cover three academic years, though they span four calendar
years. For example, the Registrar’s Report of 1952 covers enrollments from the academic years 1949-1950, 1950-
1951, and 1951-1952.
74
Appendix G: Jewish Population Data
75
Acknowledgements
We wish to express our gratitude to the alumni and students of Stanford university who spoke
to us over the course of this project. This report could not have had the depth and texture that
it does without the generosity of those who gave of their time and shared their experiences
with us.
We wish to express our gratitude to our colleagues in and beyond Stanford whose input,
insight, and assistance has deepened and enriched our efforts. Their contributions are
invaluable. They include: Izzy Aguiar, Karen Bartholomew, Max Baumgarten, Lila Corwin
Berman, Seth Brysk, Nathaniel Deutsch, Hasia Diner, Kirsten Fermaglich, Bradley Hart, Shelley
Hebert, Dana Herman, Etan Kelman, Helen Kim, Maggie Kimball, Rachel Kranson, Shira Kohn,
David Labaree, James Loeffler, Bernie Meyler, Tony Michels, Roxanne Nilan, Pam Nadell,
Charles Petersen, Bruce A. Phillips, Riv-Ellen Prell, Jon Reider, Fred Rosenblum, Sara Smith,
Miriam Spector, Jeff Wachtel, Howard Wolf, Laura Yares, and Steve Zipperstein.
Of particular note and with deepest appreciation, we wish to acknowledge the leadership of
Tiffany Steinwert, Stanford’s Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, and Patrick Dunkley, Vice
Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community.
Finally, the work of the task force would have been impossible without the generosity,
collegiality, assistance, curiosity, and patience of Josh Schneider, Stanford’s University Archivist,
and Tim Noakes, the Head of Public Services in the Department of Special Collections. Josh and
Tim were essential partners on the research and we cannot understate their contributions to
this report.
