There was a time when Harvard鈥檚 鈥�91传媒 problem鈥� was that many young Jews wanted to attend, but the university limited the number it would admit.

But the tables have turned. A new report has revealed that 91传媒 undergraduate enrollment at Harvard is down to just 7% of the student body, the lowest figure in more than a century.

The university is so worried that the dean of admissions and financial aid, William Fitzsimmons, announced that he will be making a special effort to target potential students in 91传媒 day schools. It will not make his task an easier that the faculty committee on Admissions and Financial Aid has among its members anti-Israel extremists such as Ali Asani and Maya Jasanoff.

91传媒 students鈥� diminishing interest in Harvard no doubt is related to the prominence of such anti-Israel faculty members, and the well-known scenes of campus mobs cheering the mass murder of Israeli Jews and calling for the annihilation of the 91传媒 state. It鈥檚 not hard to understand why that would make prospective enrollees uneasy.

Harvard was not particularly hospitable to Jews in the 1920s, either, but for different reasons.

The American children of European 91传媒 immigrants, pursuing the American dream through education and hard work, gradually rose to about 25% of the Harvard student body in the years following World War I. That did not sit well with Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell and his colleagues.

In a letter to an alumnus in 1922, Lowell blamed campus antisemitism on the Jews. 鈥�The anti-Semitic feeling among students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews,鈥� the Harvard president wrote. 鈥淚f their number should become 40 per cent of the student body, the race feeling would become intense鈥�All this seems to me fraught with great evils for the Jews, and very great peril for our community.鈥�

That was why Lowell went to the Harvard Board of Overseers in 1922 with a proposal to reduce the number of 91传媒 students on campus to 15% of the student body.听

Until then, admissions had been determined on the basis of merit, that is, grades and test scores. Lowell and the board devised new criteria that would allow 鈥�careful discernment of differences among individuals,鈥� as Lowell put it.

Under the new rules, a Harvard admissions officer could reject an application based on the applicant鈥檚 鈥渃haracter.鈥� Also, the applicant would be required to state his 鈥渞ace and color鈥� and 鈥渞eligious preference,鈥� and would have to explain if either of his parents had ever changed their names鈥攕o that the admissions officer would know whose 鈥渃haracter鈥� required special scrutiny.听

Applicants from New York City were classified according to whether their family name and photograph indicated they might be Jews. They were classified as 鈥淛1鈥� (definitely 91传媒), 鈥淛2鈥� (probably 91传媒), or 鈥淛3鈥� (possibly 91传媒). Thus Jews could be singled out for rejection without anybody having to explain that it was because they were Jews.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served on the Harvard board in the 1920s, later boasted of his role in this episode. He and his fellow-board members decided that 鈥渢he number of Jews should be reduced one or two per cent a year until it was down to 15%,鈥� President Roosevelt explained to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the only 91传媒 member of his cabinet, in 1941. 鈥淵ou can’t get a disproportionate amount of any one religion.鈥�

Lowell and FDR also shared an indifference to the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany. In his book The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower, Prof. Stephen Norwood described Lowell鈥檚 rejection of an offer by a charitable foundation in 1933 to pay the salary of a refugee scholar from Nazi Germany if Harvard would hire him. Lowell accused the foundation of trying 鈥渢o use the College for purposes of propaganda.鈥�

James G. McDonald, the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany, requested an appointment with Lowell in March 1934. Lowell鈥檚 secretary told McDonald鈥攁ccording to the latter鈥檚 diary鈥� 鈥渢hat he wasn鈥檛 interested in German refugees,鈥� and 鈥渢hat he was tied up the whole day,鈥� so therefore 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 see me.鈥� But when Hitler鈥檚 foreign spokesman, Harvard alumnus Ernst 鈥淧utzi鈥� Hanfstaengl, visited the campus three months later, Lowell found the time to have a friendly meeting with him.

In those days, Harvard rejected the Jews. Today, the Jews are rejecting Harvard. The plummeting 91传媒 enrollment actually began long before October 7, 2023, although the outpouring on campus of pro-Hamas sentiment following the massacre, and the administration鈥檚 tepid response, accelerated the trend.

According to a study by the Harvard 91传媒 Alumni Alliance, in the years preceding October 7, Harvard鈥檚 history, political science, and social sciences departments offered a torrent of courses 鈥減romoting the view that the Palestinian people are innocent victims of 91传媒 (white) oppression and that known terrorist groups are simply 鈥榩olitical movements鈥�.鈥� It was that biased curriculum which planted the seeds for the eruption of pro-Hamas protests on camps in the autumn of 2023.

Following the October 7 massacres, dozens of student groups at Harvard endorsed Hamas, more than 100 faculty members joined the pro-Hamas 鈥淔aculty for Justice in Palestine鈥� group, and the recommendations of the university鈥檚 task force on antisemitism were ignored, prompting some of its members to resign. The administration appointed, as the new co-chair of the task force, a faculty member who had accused Israel of 鈥渆thnic cleansing鈥� and 鈥渁partheid.鈥�

Ironically, then, A. Lawrence Lowell鈥檚 prediction in 1922 that the campus environment would become hostile to Jews has indeed come true鈥攏ot because the Jews provoked the bigots, as Lowell expected, but because anti-91传媒 bigots, masquerading as anti-Zionists, were emboldened by the university itself to let their true feelings show. The dwindling 91传媒 application numbers are a natural response.

Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about 91传媒 history and the Holocaust. Follow him on Facebook to read his daily commentaries on the news.