ABSTRACT
The question of increasing numbers of Jewish students at Harvard—and hence their "desirability"—was hotly debated in faculty meetings, private gatherings, personal correspondence, and the public press. Although a majority was decidedly against any specific limitation on Jews until after investigation-a defeat for President Lowell-a number of big Harvard names, past, present, and future, supported restriction prior to the report. Infact, according to both Jerome D. Greene and Judge Mack, the overseers had approved a broad interpretation of the committee's scope: an evaluation of Harvard's present and future educational obligations to the American people. The purpose of a college education, moreover, was to train future leaders: Jews were generally deficient, the restrictionists believed, in those traits of character and personality that were part of leadership. Although agreeing that Harvard was a private institution with a public role, the restrictionists were convinced that it should maintain a racial balance.
