<p>Discrimination is certainly a fair characterization of Hargadon’s years at Swarthmore – most evident from examining his role in “The Crisis” of 1969, richly detailed in “Swarthmore College: An Informal History” and in the 1969 Life Magazine article:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/archive/99/mar99/courtney_smith.htm[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/archive/99/mar99/courtney_smith.htm</a></p>
<p>and in the fascinating Bulletin article by Clinton Etheridge who led the black students takeover of Hargadon’s admissions office.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/index.php?id=239[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/index.php?id=239</a></p>
<p>Swarthmore’s admissions mindset changed radically with his departure in the wake of “The Crisis”. His public release of the high school academic stats of the black students at Swarthmore, given the small numbers making identification of individuals’ stats easy, was the trigger for "The Crisis – along with the fact that the number of African American students in the freshman class fell by 50% in 1968.</p>
<p>Hargadon presents a convenient rationalization for the decline of Jewish enrollment and the low acceptance rates for Asian Americans during his years at the Princeton. However, he conveniently forgets that Princeton went years without accepting a single student from Stuyvesant High in NYC – one of the country’s top public magnet schools that, alas, had disproportionately high Jewish and ethnic enrollment.</p>
<p>I agree that Princeton has undergone a major transformation, for the better, in its admissions policies. Along with Amherst, I would say these two schools have probably changed the most in the last 15 years. It’s hard to say whether the changes at Princeton occured because of Hargadon’s policies or in spite of them. For example, his dilution of the Academic 1 rating had the effect of minimizing the application strength of Asian American and Jewish applicants. Likewise, he was known for focusing recruiting efforts on affluent suburban high schools.</p>
<p>As for Princeton’s 9.6% black freshman class, I would point out that Swarthmore’s high point has been 12% black enrollment in the freshman class (fall 1998), that 14% of the acceptances this year were mailed to Af-Am students, and that 52% of Swarthmore’s acceptances this year went to non-white or international students.</p>