President Speaks Out to Exorcise Dartmouth’s Anti-Semitic Past

It is unusual for the leader of any institution to unearth skeletons of the past and hold them up for public scrutiny. That’s particularly true for college presidents who often strive to be bland to avoid offending alumni, faculty or students. And many of them abhor speaking frankly about the sensitive and complex issues of college admissions: Who gets in and who does not. All this makes it even more remarkable that Dartmouth President James O. Freedman decided in November to use the dedication of the campus’ Roth Center for Jewish Life to air the school’s anti-Semitic practices of 50 years earlier. Reading from documents assembled by a student from Dartmouth’s archives, Freedman described correspondence between alumni and college officials that discussed quotas limiting Jewish admissions and described Jews as “ghetto types” with oily hair and hooked noses. Now, preparing to retire in June from his 11-year tenure as president, Freedman reflected again on bringing forth an embarrassing period of Dartmouth’s history. Here are excepts of a conversation he had with Times reporters and editors:

“I wanted to say, this is a wonderful occasion for the Jewish community and for Dartmouth, but we really ought to appreciate that things were not always like this. This represents a stride forward in progress.

“It was a very moving occasion because Dartmouth--like every Ivy League school--had an ignoble history in the ‘30s and ‘40s of anti-Semitism. And I chose that occasion to talk about that history. Some of this was related to the fact that, in my time at Dartmouth, we’ve had enough evidences of anti-Semitism from The [Dartmouth] Review [a conservative off-campus newspaper]. [William F.] Buckley [Jr.] wrote a book called, ‘In Search of anti-Semitism,’ where Dartmouth was one of the four case histories that he looks at.

“I have been just seething over the years that Dartmouth is seen as anti-Semitic. That is not the Dartmouth of today. And the Review surely misled people in giving the impression to many that there was an anti-Semitic tone. The history of Dartmouth is no different--it’s no better and it’s no worse--than Harvard or Yale. It seemed to me this was really an occasion to exorcise that part of our past and to say we have come a long way. We have reason to celebrate that neither Dartmouth nor our society anymore would tolerate the kind of quite open anti-Semitism that was tolerated at the time.

“I received a senior thesis from a young woman about four, five years ago--who is now at Stanford Law School. She had done a senior thesis on anti-Semitism at Dartmouth, collecting all of these documents, which quote [former Dartmouth] President [Ernest M.] Hopkins as saying we’re a Christian institution whose goal is to ‘Christianize our students.’ That was in 1945. It quoted letters from an alumnus saying there are too many Jews every time I come to the campus. And the dean of admissions writing back, saying we’re trying to hold it down to 5% and 6%.

“All of this was motivated in part because Jewish kids in the ‘30s occupied the half-dozen leading positions of editor of the newspaper and president of the class. I think that happened at other schools too. It really was a sense of too many Jews dominating and [Jewish] enrollments then were near to 20%--as they were at Harvard.

“It’s ugly stuff and it was just all in the open. There’s a heartbreaking letter in the file from a father whose son was graduating from Dartmouth. He had applied to 15 medical schools, including Dartmouth, and was turned down at all 15. He writes to President Hopkins and says, ‘Could you help me understand this?’ And Hopkins writes him a very candid letter back that says, ‘I wish things were different, but your son is Jewish and medical schools have Jewish quotas, and the quota at Dartmouth Medical School was two a year. Ironclad every year.’

“I think Jews were discriminated against a little bit because of their success but a lot more because there were deemed to be too different. There are letters in these files of the president saying, ‘It wouldn’t matter as much if Jews looked like everybody else. But they just don’t look right. They have physical features that aren’t attractive.’ He writes about them as if he’s talking about the groundskeeping, or the the shrubs or the ivy.

“History is important. Where we came from is important. One has to be on guard when you talk about the possibility of discrimination. We’re not very far beyond what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. We’re not very far in politics with respect to what happened to the Irish and the Italians until 30 and 40 and 50 years ago. And I just think it’s important to recall these things. My sense is that society does not inevitably progress.

“I think part of what caused [the anti-Semitism] is that boards of trustees are typically a generation or two older than the faculty or the students. I think that’s where the policies are made. It’s fascinating that there was not a Jewish president of a major university--with one or two exceptions--until about 15 years ago. And then all of a sudden--without notice--there are Jewish presidents now at dozens and dozens of major institutions.

“Jews were discriminated against in academic positions until sometime after World War II or perhaps into the ‘60s. Even in the ‘50s at Harvard, it was very hard for a Jew to be appointed. There are many stories of the first Jews at Harvard to get tenure in the ‘50s. But the ‘60s came and Jews entered academe in large numbers and soon they moved up the ladder to dean and provost. And then they were in a position to be in the pools for presidents. I think there was a time a few years ago when four of the eight Ivy League presidents were Jewish, when the chancellor of Berkeley was Jewish, and no one even took notice of any of those things. It’s just become a normal part of American life.

“I got two negative letters saying, ‘Why did you bring this up?’ I probably got 20 or 25 affirmative letters, saying, ‘It’s important to do this. Where are the other Ivy League presidents?’ ”