Luke Karam
Professor Whitley
English 100
December 16, 2018
“Harvard University And Racial Discrimination.” 1 Aug. 1922, p. 459, https://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:EAPX&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=141A044E4C2483D8&svc_dat=HistArchive:eapdoc&req_dat=0D1CCB0EABC8FD75
This newspaper article from the 1920s is talking about the exclusion of African American and Jewish students from Universities in America. The article states that a few of the universities had entered upon a ‘Gentleman’s agreement” to limit the number of non-white students being accepted into the university. The professor from Oberlin college who is interviewed goes on to state, “We have no prejudice against the Jews, but we are glad to see them being excluded.” To further his racist views, the professor claims that it is good that they are doing this to African Americans and Jews because combined they would have more money and people than the white people. He blames on the crime and evil on the two set of people in question. The professor finally finishes his rant by saying that the Jewish people control the media and that African Americans have benefitted before from the use of Jewish media.
The article than picks up with President Lowell of Harvard and what their stance is on the issue. President Lowell sates that, “We owe African American Students our best education, but we do not owe to them inclusion in the social system with white people.” The dormitories in Harvard were divided by race, but the classroom and dining hall, were mixed, the president explains how the students of opposite races barely spent anytime interacting with each other outside the classroom. This article ends up with explaining how this is what it was like to attend a university for a nonwhite student in 20s, not only at Harvard but at any university. There was no attempt to real intergrade nonwhite students into their social life, but the Harvard president is saying how progressive they are for their time for allowing shared classrooms and dining halls.
This article accurately reflects the culture of the times, society blamed all of the evil and crimes on the society of the times. You can see from the way the professor from Oberlin speaks about the minorities, he is shifting all blame of everything onto the Jews and African Americans, it’s a sickening attitude. They even admitted that Universities during the era came to an agreement to limit the amount of African American students allowed into higher learning, they thought that with higher levels of education the minorities of America would be able to ‘catch up with” the white people. The article however ends with separating itself from the prejudice times it was written in, the Harvard president was explaining how they were progressive in the fact that they didn’t separate the students in the dining halls or classroom, which is rare for the 1920s. The first professor though, fell right into line with the racist attitudes towards others, I feel that his words in this piece were an accurate description of how most white people felt about the rest of society. They didn’t want any other race to be “equal” with them, they thought that this would mean they would lose their power if this occurred. There was even hatred towards the Jews in
this article, the professor from Oberlin talks about how they can’t have the Jews basically team up with the African Americans, if this were to happen they would be both wealthy from the Jews and have a large population from the African Americans.
This really brings light to the issues that were plaguing society in the 1920s, not only does it show that there was clear gap in class but also there was still racial prejudice, even at the highest levels of learning. Still not everyone had the same rights and privileges in this country and there was still major discrimination of minorities. It was refreshing to hear that the Harvard president was trying to change the way that the students interact at school, but he wasn’t willing to do enough to include the minorities into the social life of the typical life of a Harvard student. You can see from the way he talks that there is still a clear divide in the races at Harvard, “In the classroom white and colored students are thrown together from 3-6 hours a day.” The way he speaks about it, it appears that they are forced to combine the students together and there is a resentment from students at the university. This was major issue of the 1920s and this article really does an excellent job of highlighting the struggle in racial tensions the country was facing during this period.