Category: Retired

Back in the 1950s, the Princeton eating clubs were essential. The dining hall was only meant for freshmen and sophomores. The club you joined as a sophomore became not just a place to eat but the center of your Princeton social life, a place to hang out, nurture friendships, and make connections. 

According to one estimate, by the late 1950s, the school was about one seventh Jewish. But the Jewish students were about to find out that just because you’re admitted doesn’t mean you’re accepted. In February 1958, at the end of the bicker process—like fraternity rush, but for eating clubs—there were 35 sophomores who got no bids at all. And most of them were Jewish. The scandal was immediately dubbed “the dirty bicker” by the national press; it was reported in the New York Times, the New York Post, Newsweek, and more. It nearly caused the downfall of the eating clubs.

In Episode 2 of Gatecrashers, you’ll hear about the dirty bicker from students who were there, and learn what it tells us about class, acceptance, and belonging. You’ll hear from best-selling author Michael Lewis, Steven C. Rockefeller, novelist Geoffrey Wolff, Abby Klionsky, who wrote her senior thesis about the development of Jewish life at Princeton, Joel Davidow, Paul Rochmis, Jerry Spivak, and more.

Isaac Asimov was one of the most prolific authors in history. He was best known as a pathbreaking sci-fi writer, but his more than 500 books also included volumes on the Greeks, the Romans, Shakespeare, the Bible, and much more. He was one of the most learned men in history. 

But in 1935, 15-year-old Asimov was rejected by Columbia University. Admissions officials instead directed him to Seth Low Junior College, a separate campus in Brooklyn, 11 miles from Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus. 

What was Seth Low Junior College, and why was the brilliant Isaac Asimov sent there instead? Seth Low Junior College, which existed from 1928 to 1938, was one of Columbia’s many attempts to deal with a changing student population that they felt was contaminating its pristine, Protestant campus. And it’s part of the bigger story of how the Ivy League resistance to outsiders shaped all of higher education as we know it. 

In the first episode of Gatecrashers, a new podcast from Tablet Studios, you’ll hear about the lengths Columbia went to in order to limit the number of Jewish students. The invention of the college application itself, the admissions interview, the push for geographical diversity, and more—all elements of the college admissions process as we know it today—trace back to Columbia’s effort to keep out the Jews. You’ll hear from NPR’s Robert Siegel, former Columbia College Dean Robert Pollack, historian Robert McCaughey, sci-fi scholar Alfred Guy, and Dr. Leeza Hirt, whose undergraduate reporting unearthed the history of Seth Low Junior College.

What topic is more controversial, sensational, and endlessly captivating than college admissions? It’s a billion-dollar industry. It sends celebrities to jail. The Supreme Court is weighing in on who gets in and why. We might think we have read all there is to read on the issue, and heard all there is to hear. But if you want to understand everything that’s going on with college admissions today—not just the battles over diversity, but the very existence of college applications, the essays and interviews and standardized tests—you have to look at the first group that tried to diversify elite schools. You have to look at the Jews. Gatecrashers, an 8-part podcast series launching Sept. 13, 2022, tells the story of how Jews fought for acceptance at elite schools, and how the Jewish experience in the Ivy League shaped American higher education, and shaped America at large.