Figures indicating the existence and operation of discrimination against Jewish students applying for admission to medical schools in the United States were given by Prof. Frank Gavin of the General Theological Seminary, in a paper on the subject of discrimination in this field of higher education, read at a meeting of the Federal Council of Churches’ Committee on Goodwill Between Jews and Christians.
Pointing out that Jewish graduates of American medical colleges and universities seeking medical training in American schools of medicine are finding it so difficult to be admitted into accredited schools that they are going abroad to study, Prof. Gavin said that almost all of the 600 Americans applying for admission to the medical school of Edinburgh University were Jews.
It is significant, said Prof. Gavin, that while the trip to Scotland is expensive and that while opportunities for good medical training in this country are plentiful, so many Jewish students should be seeking admission to a foreign medical school. He can find no other reason for this than the fact that Jewish students are being discriminated against in American medical schools.
He finds the difficulties of the Jewish students of New York City particularly hard. His figures show that in one New York college whose student body is from 75 to 80 percent Jewish, the number of graduates from this college obtaining admission into New York medical schools has shrunk from 68 to 42 in the last five years. In 1928, not a single graduate from this college was accepted by the best known medical school in New York. While the number of admissions has been shrinking, the number of applications has increased from 190 to 215.
Professor Gavin’s paper contains other figures which are illuminating. “Of the applicants in 1929, there were 206 in all, of whom 16 were rated as A grade and 168, B grade, in personality and character. This group numbered 195 Jews; of the 16 others, 14 were of Italian descent. Students of this college had to file applications for admission to medical colleges in the average number of 5.2, 5.6 and 7 for the past three years, which figures, in relation to the general number of all applications throughout the country, bore the ratio: 5.2 to 2.4; 5.6 to 2.1, and 7 to 2.3. This means in plain English, that this past year it was three times as hard for a graduate of this college to be admitted into a medical school than for the average American college graduate. Another set of figures throws further light on the problem of this college’s graduates. There are five well-known medical colleges in New York. The applications and acceptances by these five medical colleges were as follows:
Applications Acceptances
43 1
62 3
170 15
153 7
115 16
“A student who entered St. Andrew’s at Dundee in 1928 writes as follows: ‘There are 17 Americans in the second year here… all are Jewish with the exception of one who is a negro.’
“Now the problem of the New York Jewish college graduate whose ambition it is to study medicine has become increasingly acute in recent years. He is usually precluded from admission to medical colleges outside the city, for one reason or another (though there are notable exceptions). One elastic category of classifying the applications is “personality.” A personal interview will often be the means of an unfavorable verdict upon an applicant whose academic record may be quite satisfactory. It has been alleged, in individual cases related to the speaker, that the proper and honest filling in of the questionnaire supplied to applicants furnishes just the sort of information on which the Jewish applicant is refused. A sample application blank (in use by a well-known New York medical college) requests a passport-size photograph, among other questions as to birthplace, religion naturalization, birthplace of parents, etc. Jewish graduates of New York colleges desiring to enter medicine, have applied sometimes to as many as forty colleges before securing admission. An analysis by Dean Burton D. Myers of the Indiana University School of Medicine for the year 1928-29, shows that of the 195 ‘multiple applicants’ for admission to medical colleges, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey furnish 160. Of the 160, New York City supplies 119.
“In an interesting paper read recently to the Association of American Medical Colleges by Dr. A. M. Schwitalla, Dean of St. Louis University Medical College, on ‘The Scholastic Achievements of Multi-Applicants,’ there are several sentences worthy of remark: ‘application to one institution only… can hardly be considered a safe criterion of scholarship.’. ‘The relative frequency of those who have received more than the minimum of collegiate preparation increases among the multi-applicants. Among the highest ten averages in the class are to be found three who applied to St. Louis University, two who applied to one other institution besides, one who applied to two other institutions, one
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who applied to 7, one who applied to 8 and one who applied to 15 other institutions besides.’ He concludes with the words: ‘The impression one gathers after reviewing case after case… is this: that in admitting students possibly Committees on Admission are inclined too readily to refuse students for the reason stated on the Association’s card as ‘Personality and poor Scholarship.’ It may be that a student is undesirable for extraneous reasons, but it seems to me that a sense of fairness might well dictate increasing caution in the employment of this classification.’
“The learned Dean’s remarks have peculiar relevance to the case of Jewish students who, it would seem constitute a large section of the multi-applicants. Successive restrictions of the opportunity to study medicine will produce-as they have already fended to do-a very iniquitous situation for liberty-loving Americans, namely, the shutting-off of the possibility for Jewish students to study medicine and the presenting of such disproportionate obstacles as to create and maintain a resentment and bitterness which, if ever, might be justified in this instance.”
The Federal Council of the Churches’ Committee on Good-Will between Jews and Christians, have decided to publish Professor Gavin’s report.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
