Dark Places Around the University: The Johns Hopkins University Admissions Quota and the Jewish Community, 1945-1951
At the end of World War II, The Johns Hopkins University implemented a Jewish admissions quota while other American universities were terminating their discriminatory policies. The quota was largely the result of the antisemitism of JHU president Isaiah Bowman. The Baltimore Jewish community did not...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
HUC
2013
|
| In: |
Hebrew Union College annual
Year: 2010, Volume: 81, Pages: 233-279 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
|
| Summary: | At the end of World War II, The Johns Hopkins University implemented a Jewish admissions quota while other American universities were terminating their discriminatory policies. The quota was largely the result of the antisemitism of JHU president Isaiah Bowman. The Baltimore Jewish community did not respond vocally to the quota and, in fact, deliberately kept the matter quiet. This reaction was the result of multiple factors. Bowman played an important role for both the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, particularly in refugee settlement matters. He served as an adviser to the United Nations meeting in San Francisco in 1945. The Jewish community feared that antagonizing him with regard to the JHU quota might backfire when they needed his help in supporting Jewish concerns in international affairs. Further, many of the leading figures in the Baltimore Jewish community had connections to JHU and had profited therefrom both socially and economically. Challenging the quota so other Jews might share in the benefit of a JHU education could have undermined their elite position and thus reveals their insecurity in the attainment of social status in the postwar years. It further differentiates the Baltimore Jewish community from others in New York and elsewhere where forceful challenges to antisemitism could be raised. |
|---|---|
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Hebrew Union College annual
|