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<p>His mother was white and father was black, so I think describing him as white or black is equally correct. Better than either term may be “mixed-race”.</p>
<p>I was re-reading a book about the history of Jews at Yale last night, and I was struck by how much of what I “know” turns out to be folklore. I was wrong, for instance, to repeat my relatives’ charge that Yale did not take Russian Jews in the 20s and 30s. It clearly did. I also learned that the explicit discussion of quotas at Harvard under President Lowell was the exception, not the rule (and much annoyed people in New Haven). The Yale Corporation steadfastly refused to endorse quotas, while individual members agitated behind the scenes to excoriate the admissions director if they thought a class list looked too “biblical”.</p>
<p>Anyway, I was struck by some parallels and some glaring non-parallels between the situation for Jews in the days of quotas and that of Asian applicants today. The parallel, of course, is that lots of Jews were always admitted, and many found great success in college. The efforts were always to hold their numbers down somewhat, not to eliminate them altogether. And, as today, there was constant agitation against what looked like quotas, even as the administration denied that quotas existed. There was surely pressure to go along to get along, but one of Yale’s biggest of BMOCs in the '30s was Eugene Rostow, a penniless Russian Jew on scholarship, who was a constant, public agitator against discrimination. Notwithstanding that, he was given scholarships (including room and board to let him live on campus), awarded the most prestigious undergraduate prize, invited to join the Elizabethan Club, admitted to the Graduate School (and later the faculty), and was widely believed to have avoided being tapped by Skull and Bones only by absenting himself from campus on Tap Day (like Kingman Brewster). Other Jews did become Bonesmen, if only sporadically.</p>
<p>Here, though, are some of the differences:</p>
<p>The most shocking difference, from our current perspective, is that until 1923 Yale’s policy was to admit any man who satisfied the entrance criteria in terms of high school studies and passing the entrance test. In other words, Yale admitted all qualified applicants (including Asians, by the way). One admitted, they faced a ton of social discrimination, but they had full access to classes and scholarships, too. So when Yale started to restrict Jewish admissions, Jews were essentially the only applicants being turned down, or close to it. There was no question that Yale faced over-crowding in the 20s, and took a legitimate decision to limit the number of students admitted, but people were all too happy to make Jews (and to some extent ethnic Catholics) bear the main brunt of that. Applications went down again in the 30s, during the Depression (and Jewish admission crept back up somewhat, although not to pre-1923 levels), and during and after WWII there was an huge expansion of the college (and lack of interest in any sort of quota) to serve the national defense and then to educate returning soldiers. So it was really the late 40s and early 50s before Yale started to become selective in the way we think of colleges being selective now, actively picking and choosing among qualified candidates</p>
<p>Which means that the period in which Jews were subject to soft quotas embedded within a holistic admissions system was surprisingly short – 20-25 years, and another 20-year period somewhat before that during which less-qualified Jews were routinely rejected, but not so many others.</p>
<p>Another very different circumstance was that, although the board and administration did not publicly embrace discrimination, leading student organizations did, and vociferously. The Yale Daily News campaigned openly that Yale needed “its own Ellis Island, with stricter standards” to keep out undesirables. Many fraternities excluded Jews from membership, as did the Dramat, Mory’s and the Lizzie, for all practical purposes (notwithstanding Gene Rostow). Of course, there were voices against discrimination as well, but unlike today there was no shortage of people in the university community ready to argue that discrimination was a good thing and there should be more of it.</p>
<p>One more, quite funny, non-parallel (and a warning not to make big policy moves based on a single social science study): Yale apparently adopted the SAT as an admission requirement in large part because it was thought to be uncoachable, unlike Yale’s own admissions exam, which generations of poor Jewish students had proved to be extremely coachable. Also, the SAT was recognized as a sort of IQ test, and the latest studies had established that Jews as a “race” were less intelligent than the average white Christian. (This was a period when Freud and Einstein were in mid-career, and Louis Brandeis had just joined the Supreme Court. There was no general meme of Jewish intelligence.) Relying on the SAT was supposed to disadvantage Jewish applicants! Um, no . . . . Anyway, no one made that mistake again.</p>
<p>Aww, a lot of spinmeisters on this thread trying to prove (smokescreen) that everything is all right in spite of evidence to the contrary.</p>
<p>No, Joshua- it is clear you didn’t see the evolution of this thread. And, let us inform you of one thing we seem to have agreed on: without evidence, there is no “case.” You can smell the dead fish all you want. You do not have supporting details. </p>
<p>So, before accusing us of runing from the facts, you would need to find some FACTS other than that Asian Americans are roughly 15-20% of the freshmen at Ivies, a number 3 to 4 times their representation in the US population. If you find that to be knee-jerk defense of the elites…read the thread.</p>
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<p>Likewise, the relative absence of Hispanic faculty at these schools proves that racial discrimination is widespread. Right?</p>
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<p>If you want a post-racial world where people are just judged on merit and not the color of their skin, why would it matter what the racial composition of the faculty is? Just sayin’ and all.</p>
<p>Something is either white, or it is non-white.</p>
<p>What I think some are trying to point out is that trying to categorize this way is an either-or. That’s not the colorblind state of mind. He’s president. I don’t believe we should even go as far as to say “culturally Black.” That is drawing some disctinction. He bridges many identities. We can celebrate that.</p>
<p>And, darn it, we can same the same for many Asian American kids. Not try to stereotype based on appearance or family homeland.</p>
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<p>Right?</p>
<p>Especially when considering the number of americans who are of a hispanic origin. wow are we in trouble with THIS one.</p>
<p>QuantMech – Obviously you know the academic Physics world. Why are there so few Chinese and Indian faculty at Yale and some other places?</p>
<p>^they know the money is not in teaching and with a physics Ph.D., the high tech industry is calling.</p>
<p>Well, then, that’s not “discrimination,” despite what Joshua seems to think.
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Let me try just one more time.</p>
<p>Here is a simple question.</p>
<p>In 2008 did we elect the latest in an unbroken line of white men for President? That’s what I was responding to. </p>
<p>I say no. I say he bridges many identities. How’s that?</p>
<p>@pizzagirl, It’s funny how people knowingly act naive. Asians are discriminated everywhere. How many are on Ivy faculty? How many are Industry CEOs? They are toiling in the low-level tech jobs in industry where the white majority is ruling. Aww, democracy is a wonderful thing!</p>
<p>Y’all know anthropologists are currently shunning the word/concept “race?” Not based on political correctness, but based on genetic markers, the many similarities among the “races.” IIRC, the genetic differences, eg, among Blacks, outnumber those between Blacks and Whites.</p>
<p>So, Bovertine, why the fixation (among many) on the color of his skin and birthplace of his father? He’s highly educated, grew up in a multicultural society, raised by white grandparents-- but we “want” to call him non-white? </p>
<p>He’s not a “fully White” male. The end. His interests, strengths, style, friends, politics, reading preferences, alma maters, leisure preferences, traditions, whatever, defy stereotyping. Any insistence on categorizing him is in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>Joshua, are you a college-age poster?</p>
<p>This thread has gone waaay beyond calling each other naive or smug. Or flinging down gauntlets. </p>
<p>Now you want to rile us up by stating definitively that Asians (presume you mean Asian Americans) are “toiling in the low-level tech jobs in industry where the white majority is ruling.” </p>
<p>Back it up. And mind the TOS.</p>
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Good grief. Did you read the origin of my post? I am responding to a statement that all presidents have been white males. By saying that is not true, I am disavowing the categorization. I didn’t bring it up. And I can’t even believe we are debating this.</p>
<p>Let us reverse the question. If 98% of the AA did not vote for him in the primaries believing him to be of their race, would our current president be a caucasian female?</p>
<p>@lookingforward, If the facts rile you up, there is nothing I can do about it. Blame the data. How many Asians are managers at Tech firms like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, not even counting on the wall st firms?</p>
<p>@bovertine, I repeat, read the posts. Who said all the presidents are white men?</p>
<p>JoshuaM, I give up. How many?</p>
<p>Joshua, we went through this with another poster, one we assume is an adult- if you have something to add, beyond questions and implications- and mocking- please do so. Don’t make us chase your figures, you chase them and show us. If you have first-hand knowledge (ie, work for one of thse firms or even in that industry,) we’ll take an occasional anecdote. </p>
<p>As I warn my kids, don’t fall into: I think it, so it must be true.</p>
<p>Bov, if I misread you, sorry- but really, I am referring to the odd general need to categorize. Bugs me, eg, that people so freely call AA kids boring math drudges. Makes me wonder if those folks know these kids . Etc, etc.</p>