Ivy League Exodus

Tablet Magazine ^ | April 18, 2023 | Armin Rosen

[Twotone]

Kemp Mill Synagogue is a spiritual home to lobbyists, policy scholars, and White House staffers. It looks out over the opening of a lushly wooded forest valley in suburban Maryland, just down the street from a horse farm. One of its common nicknames used to be Congregation Bnei Ivy—the people of the Ivy League.

The name alludes to an enduring way of life for an influential segment of American Jews. The eight Ivy League schools are a collective stand-in for the meritocratic system that turned the children and grandchildren of penniless Yiddish-speakers into some of the richest and most important people in America. In Kemp Mill Synagogue’s case, it really did seem as if everyone there had gone to an Ivy League school, or had sent several of their children to one. But that was almost a generation ago. “I’m not sure the nickname fits anymore,” said Tevi Troy, a congregant, historian, Cornell alumnus, and former Bush administration official.

For Jews, an Ivy League degree was both a status symbol and a crucial element in a functioning and merit-based system of social mobility. An Ivy education was proof of a durable theory that Jews—like other immigrant communities—could become normalized in American society through sheer ability, which could be recognized, nurtured, and rewarded through institutions that everyone still trusted and even admired. Like other elite realms, the Ivies became places where Jews were numerous and comfortable. Some 25% of the Harvard student body was Jewish from the 1960s onward. Yale was perhaps as much as one-third Jewish in the ’70s and ’80s. The University of Pennsylvania was always mythologized as being 40% or even a half Jewish, though the best numbers indicate the high-water mark was more in the 35% range.

[dfwgator]

The “talented blacks” at Harvard were—to put it bluntly—mostly pathetic (with a very few exceptions). They continued on to rise way above their talent level in the corporate world due to affirmative action. Almost inevitably they finally got promoted high enough so they could do real damage to their employer—

Or their country.

[FLT-bird]

bible-thumping, beer-drinking, Conservatives ????

What are the worst of the chitlibs' stereotypes about Conservatives? Give 'em that and plenty of it. Ram it down their throats. That's diversity baby! How y'all like it? (big grin)

[wintertime]

Ok...I believe you.

[Clemenza]

Many Jewish and Asian Americans all but fetishize the Ivy League. Of course the truly brainy people of any ethnicity manage to make it to the University of Chicago ;).

[Wayne07]

College admissions are seriously f’d up - it is a horror show. We’ll be paying the price for abandoning merit for the next 50 years.

[Antoninus]

I bet the medical and dental schools are still 90% Jewish.

Nope, I don't think that's true. In fact, my son has been seriously considering dental school and he has already been told he "the wrong color" despite his straight-As in college. He has been told that dental schools are taking "minority" students almost exclusively. What this means in practice is that Asian, Middle-Eastern and Indian students are the vast majority of those accepted. It's a scandal.

[rmlew]

I agree with most of the article, but it ignores demographics. Liberal Jews are less likely to marry other Jews and to have children. To be honest, although I am no liberal, I am part of the problem. I’m a single 45-year old alumnus of Columbia

[Grampa Dave]

Since these schools are educational charities under IRS code 501(c)3, Congress should hold hearings,” OpenTheBooks founder Adam Andrzejewski said of the taxpayer money.

“Who knew that you were subsidizing the wealthy Ivy League? They don’t need taxpayer help,” Andrzejewski said.

UPENN NOTIFIES FBI OF ‘DISTURBING’ ANTISEMITI”Are these wealthy universities operating in the public interest or their own special interest?C EMAILS ‘THREATENING VIOLENCE’ AGAINST ITS JEWISH COMMUNITY.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6340705556112

[Chickensoup]

These schools want kids of a certain color who can simply make it through college. That is the goal.

Ultimately, it is the end of the idea that the “smartest kids” go to these schools. They don’t.

.......

This has been going on for a long time. Thirty and 40 years ago one knew that pigment counted more than anything else.

The fact that it has been unsaid so long is the amazing thing.

Lots of Pali scarfs back then too.

Jews didn’t notice?

[golux]

Lots of Pali scarfs back then too.

I have no idea what that means.

I am Jewish but at Yale I was just another Yalie.

Not a legacy.

In America and elsewhere I am an AMERICAN.

The smartest, hardest working kids got in in those days.

There were also lots of insane legacies.

My kids are much smarter and work harder than I did.

They absolutely eclipse me in every way.

Not sure if they will or should even apply.

They really are just middle class white kids, like I was, and that is now undesirable.

[golux]

Oh! Maybe you are saying that I knew even one “Palestinian” as an undergrad. I did not. Or, maybe you are saying that Jews are traditionally beneficiaries of elite admissions (instead of quotas) based on Jewish race? That is a question for you to answer but do check the very unpopular and hard-to-find numbers of IQ or even SAT scores by race, Nobel prizes in sciences by race, etc. Jews aren’t perfect. There are too many commies amongst us. But we’re some smart-ass cats, and we’re on the RIGHT, too, and always have been.

[Chickensoup]

There are better schools to go to. Some of the engineering schools. Hillsdale.... others...

I wouldn’t send a dog to the ivys or most state schools either.

Many homeschoolers pull together their own programs stitching together courses and experiential work.

We are moving to licensure without education agenda. Instead testing.

Apprenticeship and passing the bar for example

We are entering a whole new world.

[Chickensoup]

Am aware. Lots of Pali scarfs were around on campus 30 plus years ago. Not a lot pf Palestinians.

They show support for Pali cause. Really struck home for me recently as I re-watch a show from 80s and 90s with college campus settings and see all the Pali scarfs. Keffiyeh.