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Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne has published a formal apology to the Jewish community for the university's historical bias against Jewish students, according to an Oct. 12 letter posted in the Stanford Report.
The university created a task force in January to research allegations that in the 1950s Stanford had limited its admission of Jewish students. The task force was formed in response to a 1953 university memo, which was previously reported in an August 2021 blog post titled, "How I Discovered Stanford's Jewish Quota," by Charles Petersen. The university also asked the task force to make recommendations on enhancing current Jewish life on campus.
The task force's archive-based historical investigation resulted in a 75-page report that found the university suppressed undergraduate admissions of Jewish students in the 1950s and spent years afterward denying that the discrimination occurred.
In 1953, Rixford Snyder, the university's director of admissions, raised concerns about the number of Jewish students on campus to Frederic Glover, the assistant to Stanford President Wallace Sterling. In his account to Sterling of the conversation, Glover noted Snyder's desire "to disregard our stated policy of paying no attention to the race or religion of applicants."
Glover supported Snyder's intentions.
"I told him that I thought his current policy made sense, that it was a matter requiring the utmost discretion," Glover wrote in 1953.
He specified that Snyder was concerned about two southern California high schools that he knew to have significant numbers of Jewish students: Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School.
The task force report found a sharp drop in student enrollments from both schools immediately hereafter, but not from any others — evidence that the university took action to suppress admission of Jewish students, Tessier-Lavigne said.
It's unclear how long Snyder might have acted against admitting Jewish students, but the effect was felt particularly keenly among Jews in southern California. They developed a widespread understanding that Stanford had a "quota" on Jewish students, the task force said.
The university's administrators also denied the bias.
"Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, when alumni, the AntiDefamation League, and at least one trustee raised concerns to Glover, Sterling, or Snyder, they were met with dismissals and denials. Glover's and Snyder's written responses took advantage of the literal definition of 'quota' and the discretion built into Stanford's admissions policies to misrepresent what they knew to be otherwise true: that they collaborated to suppress the number of Jewish students enrolling at Stanford," the task force wrote.
Tessier-Lavigne said it was time to own up to the anti-Jewish bias.
"This ugly component of Stanford's history, confirmed by this new report, is saddening and deeply troubling. As a university, we must acknowledge it and confront it as a part of our history, as repellent as it is, and seek to do better," he said.
"On behalf of Stanford University I wish to apologize to the Jewish community, and to our entire university community, both for the actions documented in this report to suppress the admission of Jewish students in the 1950s and for the university's denials of those actions in the period that followed. These actions were wrong. They were damaging. And they were unacknowledged for too long. Today, we must work to do better, not only to atone for the wrongs of the past, but to ensure the supportive and bias-free experience for members of our Jewish community that we seek for all members of our Stanford community," Tessier-Lavigne said.
The university has accepted the task-force recommendations and will begin their implementation, with one modification: The task force recommended an additional study of contemporary Jewish life at Stanford. Tessier-Lavigne said the university will go beyond a study and will commission a standing Jewish advisory committee of students, staff, faculty and alumni. The advisory committee would work with the Office of the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community and the Office for Religious and Spiritual Life to address the Jewish community's needs and work with campus offices on taking action.
"We believe this approach will provide a more dynamic, action-oriented, and sustainable means of addressing these needs than would be provided by a single study," he said.
In addition, Stanford noted a series of other changes it intends to implement. It will hold anti-bias and related trainings that will include antisemitism as one of the areas of anti-bias education. The university began the fall semester on Rosh Hashanah this year; Academic Council committees will work to prevent the same occurrencen in future years and academic calendars will require Faculty Senate approval, he said.
'Today, we must work to do better, not only to atone for the wrongs of the past, but to ensure the supportive and bias-free experience for members of our Jewish community that we seek for all members of our Stanford community.'
-Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president, Stanford University
The university's Residential & Dining Enterprises and Residential Education units have worked with Hillel, a religious organization serving and supporting students, the Office for Religious and Spiritual Life and students to better accommodate Jewish students' religious and cultural needs, including a kosher dining program. The units intend tol work harder to ensure that students are informed about the program and to bolster other resources to assist Jewish students' needs, he said. The university also plans to work more closely with Hillel, which is not an official Stanford entity but provides support and services to members of the Stanford community.
The Associated Students of Stanford University has also said it would enforce a 2019 resolution adopted by the Undergraduate Senate to combat antisemitism on campus, he said.
"It would be natural to ask whether any of the historical anti-Jewish bias documented by the task force exists in our admission process today. We are confident it does not. We welcome, and we seek to support, a thriving Jewish community at Stanford as part of our diverse community of students and scholars from all backgrounds," Tessier-Lavigne said.
"Second, this report is one part of our work to confront our institutional history," he said, noting that some campus buildings and streets have been renamed in recent years and it would continue to address the concerns of multiple campus constituencies as part of an ongoing effort.
"Finally, I extend my great appreciation for the work of the task force that produced this report, as well as the university archivists who provided critical support for it. We asked the members of the task force to investigate this serious and sensitive matter through scholarly inquiry, with an unflinching commitment to examining the historical record as they found it. They have done so, and they have provided essential guidance for the university's ongoing and necessary efforts to support the members of our Jewish community," he said.
The letter was met with appreciation by Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, executive director of Hillel at Stanford.
"On behalf of Hillel at Stanford, I want to lift up President Tessier-Lavigne's apology as a notable example of institutional teshuvah — an acknowledgment of past wrongdoing and clear and specific commitment to ensure a supportive and bias-free experience at Stanford. This is what we want for all members of the Stanford community," she said in an Oct. 12 statement.
"At a time when many of us fear the judgment of other people, it takes courage to commission a report like this, accept its recommendations for change, and share it publicly. We applaud this courage, and the work of the task force, a group of Stanford faculty, students, alumni, and staff, which brought the truth to light."
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