Nicholas Murray Butler’s presidency would usher in a new era for Columbia.  Although the move uptown to the present location in Morningside Heights began under President Seth Low (the campus would be dedicated in 1896), the new campus would expand considerably under Butler’s tenure, and Columbia would rise to international stature during that time. Butler was Columbia’s 12th president, and served for a remarkable 43 years. The number of students grew tenfold during his tenure, as did the university’s budget.  As the university grew in size and stature, however, Butler wanted to focus on the institution as an elite one, looking beyond New York for “the right kind of boy” and advancing a series of policies to ensure a certain exclusivity within the university.

One of the issues that he struggled with was the focus of the university as “in the city of New York.”  As mentioned in an earlier post, Columbia donor and Barnard Trustee Jacob Schiff had reached out to the previous president, Seth Low (as early as 1892), and then to Butler himself, to discuss the issue of representation. Schiff’s argument for a Jewish trustee at Columbia was twofold: As a university “in the city of New York,” it should represent the population of New York, which had a very large Jewish presence.  Second, the student body contained a relatively large Jewish contingency as well, which, in Schiff’s view, also necessitated Board representation. Seth Low had responded to a letter asking about this in 1900 indicating that “four professors of Jewish race…were all unanimously appointed”* and that “the 20th century would not be very old before that which you desire will happen.” And indeed, a 1901 letter from President Seth Low to Trustee W. Bayard Cutting suggests that Isaac Seligman, CC 1876 (brother of Eugene Seligman) would be a good candidate for the position. The Seligman family, especially Isaac and his brother Edwin Robert Anderson, were involved with building Columbia’s Slavic collections. Notwithstanding the recommendation, however, Isaac would not be appointed to the Board of Trustees.

On January 30, 1907, Schiff wrote the following to President Butler:

I have decided not to further contribute toward the needs of Columbia, until the large portion of the population of our city of the Jewish faith be accorded representation in the Board of Trustees…I have earnestly urged…that a class, comprising probably twenty-five percent of the population of the Borough of Manhattan…furnishing, moreover, a very considerable part of the students of the university, should be entitled to representation in the University’s government body.

He closed his letter with a keen understanding of the times: “…representatives of Jewish faith are, by tacit understanding, kept out of the Government of Columbia University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History and other leading communal corporations, [and thus] prejudice is kept alive against the Jewish population…” (Central Files, Box 338, Folder 18)

Perhaps because of Schiff’s letter, there was much discussion among the trustees in 1907 about the possibility of creating an alumnus position on the Board – this would allow for better student representation (and perhaps ensure that if there was a Jewish trustee, it would be a “good Columbia man.” Two trustees, John S. Kennedy and Horace Carpentier, offered to resign their posts to create space for an alumnus (there was no need, as the Board would later add three more seats in part to allow for alumni representation).

In early 1911, the Board of Trustees considered a proposal to hold a meeting of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Columbia. Former president Seth Low strongly opposed the proposal, as it would bring thousands of people to campus during the first three weeks of classes, and “would constitute such an interruption of the proper life of the University as should not be permitted by the Trustees.” Low had another concern, as well: that “it would compel the University to discriminate against about one-fifth of he population of New York.” In a remarkably progressive attitude for the time, Low was essentially arguing for a separation between church and university in the pursuit of inclusion (or, in Low’s words, “a universal hospitality, a hospitality wide enough to include Jews as well as Christians.”)  His argument was that if Columbia aligned with the Episcopal Church in this way, it would make Jews feel unwelcome, and that was something that he would not condone. His argument became even stronger when other trustees indicated that they would allow for any Christian denomination to host such an event, but not a non-Christian one. Additional letters on the subject focused on the state funding that the university received, and indicated that aligning with a religious denomination would disqualify Columbia for such funds. Low made similar arguments regarding funding that the university had been receiving from Jewish donors. Letters in the Central Files show that the discussion must have gotten quite heated, leading Low to request to resign from the Board of Trustees because he didn’t want to be seen as disagreeing with the current President. After much discussion, Low agreed to remain on the Board in name only, but ceased attending Trustee meetings from that time onward. (Central Files, Box 459, Folder 9)

The question of a Jewish trustee continued to be considered over the next few years, and was firmly denied. The most vehement opposition came from William Parsons, Board member (and as a student, a cofounder of The Columbia Spectator) who had this (and much more) to say on the subject of a Jewish trustee, in a November 8, 1913 letter to George Rives, then Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

We have for years set ourselves absolutely against this movement, and if the principle were once established it would become more difficult in the future to resist encroachment. We can both of us recall many times when free discussion in the Board would have been seriously handicapped by the presence of one of this people [Jews].

In character they are terribly persistent. They realize that there has been for 2000 years or more a prejudice against them, and they are always seeking after special privilege for themselves and their people. They have retained their special calendar, their holidays differ from those of every body else, and they want these holidays recognized generally, and in some cases I believe by law…they form the worst type of our emigrants, they supply more leaders to anarchistic, socialistic, and other movements of unrest. In the recent election the socialistic vote was confined largely to the East Side and to Brownsville, in Brooklyn, where they live. (Central Files, Box 333, Folder 3)

The letter was reviewed by President Butler, who deemed it “true as gospel.”

It is clear that the question of Jews and Columbia was a frequent one during these years. In addition to the correspondents mentioned above, Frederick Keppel (Secretary of the University) also had quite a bit to say about the Jews at Columbia. In addition to casual notes in correspondence (like the assertion that a “Professor Meyer” that he was recommending was not a Jew), a memo for the Committee of Instruction in his file included a special section on what to do with Jewish applicants. He would expand on his concerns in a 2017 book, The Undergraduate and His College, where he wrote that “the Jews are not readily assimilated…looks upon the college course from the point of view of an investment.” (pp. 83-84)

Columbia administrators expressed a sudden interest between 1911 and 1914 about statistics about students from Brooklyn and the East Side (parts of New York with the largest Jewish presence at the time) and their engagement (or lack thereof) in university life. It was during these years that the university expanded its focus beyond New York to attract a broader student body – especially those who would live on campus rather than commute.  Some scholars have posited that the goal here was to limit the many Jewish students who were attending Columbia as a local institution.

A Jewish trustee would not be appointed until 1928, with Benjamin Cardozo (CC 1889, MA 1890, Law 1891, LLD 1915) taking the role.  Ironically, 1928 was also the year of the opening of Seth Low Junior College, a separate school in Brooklyn that was intended as an alternative to weed out Jewish students (and other undesirables at the time, like Italians), from the uptown campus.

The first issue of the Seth Low Scop, the student paper of Seth Low Junior College, is now available online, and further issues will be added in the coming months.

 

And yet, even while all sorts of discrimination may have been taking place in the Trustee meetings or in administrative offices, Jewish students continued to arrive at Columbia – and even thrive! In 1913, the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, an important Jewish student group, met at Columbia in 1913,  and in 1917, Alexander Dushkin would complete a dissertation on Jewish education in New York at the university. The headline on the left, from The Columbia Spectator, shows an announcement for The Council of Jewish Societies [note the plural!] on campus in 1920, and noted Jewish Columbians arriving in the intervening years included Frank Tannenbaum, Lionel Trilling and Meyer Schapiro. So even in the darkest of years, Jewish life could still thrive on campus. And it would grow even more significantly in the years to follow. Yearbooks from these years show active engagement in the Menorah Society, Zeta Beta Tau (the Jewish fraternity) and other Jewish groups.

*The four professors were Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman (Political Science, 1885), Richard J.H. Gottheil (Semitic Languages, 1890), Franz Boas (Anthropology, 1896), Edward Kasner (Mathematics, 1900)

The most comprehensive published work on “the Jewish question” at Columbia in the early 20th century – including on discriminatory admissions to keep Jews out – is Harold Wechsler’s 2014 The Qualified Student, especially chapter 7, “Repelling the Invasion: Columbia and the Jewish Student.”