Fwd: Harvard demography

This may be of interest. Do not fwd or associate my name.

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Rosovsky, Henry"
Date: September 5, 2016 at 11:52:50 AM EDT
To: LHS , "Friedman, Benjamin M."
Cc: Professor Henry Rosovsky , Ihsofficea>
Subject: Re: Harvard demography

Gentlemen:

I haven't got much to add.

We have known since the very beginning that affirmative action would—at the margin—cost Jews some places at highly selective institutions. It seems to me that intermarriage also has to be part of the discussion.

Finally, I think that Bob Mnookin has (or is) doing research about this very question. I would certainly talk to him.

Happy Labor Day to both of you.

Henry

From: LHS
Date: Monday, September 5, 2016 at 10:30 AM
To: "Friedman, Benjamin M."
Cc: Professor Henry Rosovsky, Ihsoffice
Subject: Re: Harvard demography

This tracks my guesses.

Also. Apparently there is evidence that Jews have gone way south in terms of intel science fair math Olympiad and national merit test.

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On Sep 5, 2016, at 10:07 AM, Friedman, Benjamin M. > wrote:

Thanks, Larry. I think you've pointed to part of the right explanation. For comparison, note that the Christian identifiers -- including both Protestants and Catholics together -- are only 33percent. Atheist + agnostic + other (where Muslims and Hindus and Mormons are NOT part of the "other") make up 53 percent of the class. Lots of students we think of as Jews presumably put themselves into that group.

The way I usually think about this matter is somewhat different. Today only half of the class consists of white Americans. I think Jews are about a quarter or so of that group. When I was an undergraduate, Jews were also about a quarter of the white Americans. But since the entire class (to a first approximation) was white and American, that meant Jews were about a quarter of the class as a whole. Now, at a quarter of the white Americans, they're only an eighth of the class.

In sum, there are two factors at work: weakening of religious identification among young Americans overall, and the deliberate move in our admissions policy away from white Americans. On my rough arithmetic, the two are about equal in force in explaining what you saw in the survey.

Henry, what do you think?

Ben

From: LHS [mailto:
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2016 8:12 AM
To: Professor Henry Rosovsky; Friedman, Benjamin M.
Cc: Ihsoffice
Subject: Harvard demography

Henry, Ben

I was very surprised that this year s survey in the crimson revealed that the Harvard class of 2020 was only 6 percent Jewish. Does this surprise you?

There were a substantial number of atheists and agnostics so this is a partial explanation. But still I was struck by this fact without knowing what to make of it.

Any thoughts?

Larry

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