Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Jews Warned on Possibility of Discrimination in U.S. Colleges

August 14, 1957
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

A warning that recent gains in elimination of discriminatory admission policies in American colleges may suffer a setback during the next five years because of pressures of academic overcrowding was sounded here today at the close of a nine-day Institute for B’nai B’rith Girls.

Saul Sorrin, regional Anti-Defamation League director for Illinois and Missouri, told the 170 delegated that the growing demands on existing educational facilities were likely to lead colleges and universities to revert to discriminatory admission policies.

Warning that such pressures were likely to become particularly acute in professional schools, Mr. Sorrin said that members of minority groups would be the major victims. He also warned young people about to start business careers that they would face “subtle forms” of discrimination in large corporations which he said in the main do not hire Jewish executives.

He said anti-Semitism in its present form was “less tangible and more difficult to cope with” than the anti-Semitism of the generation of parents of the delegates, which was marked by abuse and physical violence spawned by the rise of Hitler and economic insecurity at home.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement