The Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900-1970

By the turn of the twentieth century, academic nativism had taken root in elite American colleges—specifically, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant hegemony was endangered by new kinds of student, many of them Catholic and Jewish immigrants. The newcomers threatened to displace native-born Americans by raising academic standards and winning a disproportionate share of the scholarships.

The Half-Opened Door analyzes the role of these institutions, casting light on the...